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THE GREATER ABBEYS OF ENGLAND 




WESTMINSTER ABBEY : NAVE AND CHOIR FROM THE WEST 



THE 

GREATER ABBEYS 

OF ENGLAND 



BY 



ABBOT GASQUET 

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR AFTER 
WARWICK GOBLE 




NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 

1908 



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Copyright, 1908 
By DODD, mead & COMPANY 



Published October y igo8 



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^^^^^HE Abbeys of England, ruined, dismantled 
m C| and time-worn, are fitting memorials of a great 
^^^^^ past. From any point of view and whatever 
our opinion about the utility or purpose of 
monastic life in general and about English monastic life 
in particular, we are constrained to confess that the monks 
of old, who built up these " Cliffs of Walls " and orna- 
mented them with all the wealth of carving, panelling 
and moulding still to be traced amid the moss-grown 
ruins, have left, scattered over the whole face of their 
country, monuments of their great work and stone records 
of their existence in the land from the earliest period of 
our national history. 

The fascination undoubtedly exerted over the mind 
of most people by these memorials of a past, whether 
actually in ruins or partially saved from the general 
wreck of the sixteenth century, may be taken to dis- 
pense with any apology for the existence of such a book 
as this. Those who go to visit what may be described, 
without exaggeration, as the most attractive spots in 
this land of many interests, old and new, naturally desire 
to possess some knowledge of the past history of these 
desecrated sanctuaries and to have some lasting memorial 
of their visit. Both the one and the other need may, it 
is hoped, be met by the production of this volume; whilst 

[V] 



TO THE READER 

those who have not had the opportunity of visiting per- 
sonally many of these old abbeys, may also find in it 
some attraction to the story of these great monasteries 
which were, during many generations, real factors in the 
life and well-being of the English people. 

Although this book with its artistic illustrations does 
not appear to call for any explanation or introduction in 
the ordinary sense, some few words on one particular 
point by way of Preface may, perhaps, be useful to the 
general reader. The spectacle of these ivy-clad and 
moss-grown buildings, roofless and weatherbeaten by 
wellnigh four centuries of exposure to rain and frost, 
speaks of some great, some dire catastrophe. They lift 
to heaven's vault their broken walls, their capless pillars, 
their fragments of arches, like gaunt skeletons upraising 
their fleshless arms in warning or in protest. Some of 
them, indeed, are vast in size and, though ruined, are yet 
so little touched by the hand of time as to seem still 
peopled by the ghosts of the men who built them centuries 
ago. But one and all of these ruins which are scattered 
all over the face of England appear to be ever asking the 
question, "Why?" Why this wanton destruction? 
What wave of anger or madness has wrought the havoc? 
Why have these beautiful sanctuaries, which the piety 
and generosity of generations of Englishmen raised to the 
honour and glory of God, been wrecked and cast down 
into the dust? 

The common answer to the riddle of these ruins would 
probably be that this complete and dire destruction came 

[vi] 



TO THE READER 

upon the religious houses in the days of Henry VHI, in 
popular and righteous indignation for the wicked lives of 
the men who lived in them. They stand as a memorial 
for all time of " the vicious lives " these so-called religious 
men were living " under cover of their cowls and hoods." 
This is a common and ready explanation often given, 
and probably repeated in every ruin throughout the 
country, to account for the great catastrophe which over- 
whelmed the religious houses and has left these ruins as 
evidence of the storm. But is this the truth or anything 
like the truth? 

What really happened to bring about the suppression 
of the English monasteries in the rapacious days of Henry 
Vin may here be usefully but briefly set out. The in- 
ception of the idea of destroying the monasteries may cer- 
tainly be credited to the ingenious, capable and all-power- 
ful minister of Henry VIII, Thomas Crumwell. He 
saw in the monastic property a gold mine, which, with a 
little management, could be worked to his master's great 
profit, and out of which pickings would no doubt be possi- 
ble for himself and others. It was necessary to prepare 
the way: to the acute mind of Crumwell it was obvious 
that even the subservient and timorous Parliament of 
Henry would hardly hand over the private property of 
the monks and nuns without having some good reasons 
given them for so doing. The readiest way was to 
blacken the character of those they wished to rob and so 
convince the Parliament that they were not worth pro- 
tecting. 

[vii] 



TO THE READER 

Thomas Crumwell was Henry's Vicar-General in 
Spirituals, and acting in this capacity he projected a 
royal visitation of all religious houses in the autumn of 
1535. The subordinates chosen by the Vicar-General for 
the work were worthy instruments of their master and 
their letters prove them to have been utterly unscrupulous 
and entirely reckless in their accusations. At the same 
time preachers were sent over the country to prepare the 
popular mind for the contemplated seizure of monastic 
property. These emissaries of Crumwell were instructed 
to orate against the monks as " hypocrites, sorcerers and 
idle drones," etc. ; to tell the people that " the monks 
made the land unprofitable " and that ^' if the abbeys 
went down, the King would never want for any taxes 
again." 

The destruction of the monasteries consequently was 
not only an item in the general policy of Henry and his 
minister, but it was certainly determined upon before the 
Visitors were sent on their rounds, and hence was quite 
independent of any reports they sent in. 

It would be out of place to enter here into the details 
of the visitation. The work was done so rapidly that it 
was quite impossible that there could have been any 
serious inquiry into the moral state of the houses visited. 
That these men who acted for Crumwell in this matter 
suggested in their letters and reports all manner of evil 
against the good name of the monasteries, is true, and 
was quite what was to be expected. 

But all these charges rest upon the word of these 

. [ viii ] 



TO THE READER 

Visitors alone and from what is known of the character 
of these chosen instruments no reliance can be placed 
upon them. Upon their testimony, it has been said 
" No one would dream of hanging a dog." For the 
benefit of any of my readers who may be inclined to 
think I am biassed in this matter I here set down what 
Dr. Jessopp has to say about Crumwell's Visitors. 
^'When the Inquisitors of Henry VHI and his Vicar- 
General Crumwell," he writes, " went on their tours of 
visitation, they were men who had no experience of the 
ordinary forms of inquiry which had hitherto been in 
use. They called themselves Visitors; they were, in 
effect, mere hired detectives of the very vilest stamp, who 
came to levy blackmail, and, if possible, to find some 
excuse for their robberies by vilifying their victims. In 
all the comperta which have come down to us there is not, 
if I remember rightly, a single instance of any report or 
complaint having been made to the Visitors from anyone 
outside. The enormities set down against the poor 
people accused of them, are said to have been confessed 
by themselves against themselves. In other words, the 
comperta of 1535-6 can only be received as the horrible 
inventions of the miserable men who wrote them down 
upon their papers, well knowing that, as in no case could 
the charges be supported, so, on the other hand, in no case 
could they be met, nor were the accused ever intended to 
be put upon their trial." 

That these reports were bad enough may be admitted, 
although even they by no means bear out the charges of 

[ix] 



TO THE READER 

wholesale corruption. It is usually asserted that it was 
upon the evidence of the reports, whatever their worth, 
that Parliament condemned the monasteries to destruc- 
tion. It is, however, quite impossible that either the re- 
ports, or any precis of them, could have been submitted 
to the Commons, or any " Black Book " placed upon the 
table of the House at Westminster as so many modern 
authors would have us believe. One fact alone proves 
this. The Visitors inspected and reported upon all reli- 
gious houses, great and small, and all are equally be- 
smirched in their letters and reports. Consequently, if 
the actual documents had been presented to Parliament, 
it would have been impossible, in the preamble of the 
Act which was passed suppressing the lesser houses, to 
thank God that the others — " the great and solemn abbeys 
of the realm " — were in a wholesome and excellent state. 

The truth about the matter is that, as the Act itself 
states, the Commons passed the Bill of Suppression on 
the strength of the King's declaration that he knew the 
facts to be as had been stated to them. It was for this 
reason alone they agreed to suppress them and by the 
King's desire drew the line of moral delinquency at £200 
a year. The more the whole story is studied, the clearer 
it becomes that from first to last it was a question of 
money. Crumwell knew that he could not get the whole 
plum at once, and so prudently he advised his master to 
content himself at first with the smaller portion, which 
he tried to make men believe was rotten, whilst the rest 
was in an excellent and healthy state. 

[X] 



TO THE READER 

The £200 a year standard of " good living " set by the 
Act, made it immediately necessary to ascertain which 
houses fell within the limit and had been handed by 
Parliament to the King to be dealt with according to his 
" good pleasure, to the honour of God and the wealth 
of the realm." Commissioners were appointed for the 
purpose of determining the fate of the various houses. 
They included some of the country gentry and other '' dis- 
creet persons " of the neighbourhood, men who knew the 
locality and the members of the religious houses. Curi- 
ously enough, the reports sent in by these men almost 
always contradict the accounts of Crumwell's inquisitors. 
This is not the case only with one house or district, but as 
Dr. James Gairdner remarks, in these reports when we 
have them, ^' the characters given of the inmates are al- 
most uniformly good." 

The dissolution of the lesser monasteries by virtue of 
the Act of 1536 accounts for some of the English monastic 
ruins. So anxious were the royal officials to make the 
most of the property that had come into their possession 
that they did not hesitate to cast down the timber of the 
roof and break up the carved stall work or screen for fuel 
to melt the lead into pigs. Many a fine church might 
have been saved to posterity, had the royal wreckers not 
been in such a hurry to realise all that could be got from 
the general wreck and to gather in what were called at 
the time the " Robinhood pennyworths " for themselves. 

The first Act of Dissolution, strange as the assertion 
may seem, was in fact the only one. The rest of the 

[xi] 



TO THE READER 

abbeys were not legally suppressed. They came into 
Henry's hands by the attainder of abbots, as in the case of 
Woburn and Glastonbury, etc., or, as was generally the 
case, by the free, though coerced, surrender of the house 
into the royal power. Then, when all was over and the 
greater number of the monasteries and their possessions 
were already in the King's power. Parliament passed an 
Act giving Henry all he had got by force, or by his new 
interpretation of the law of attainder. 

The process of gathering in the spoils in the case of 
each monastery was much the same as that employed in 
the case of the lesser houses; and by the time the profes- 
sional wreckers had finished their work, the land was left 
covered from one end to the other with ruins. Many of 
these have gradually perished by neglect and natural 
decay; many have been used as public quarries and to get 
stone to mend roads, or build cottages and pigsties. Some 
have survived, melancholy memories of the past, but even 
in their desolation still among the finest architectural 
examples in the country. 



[xii] 



dnntfttta 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I St. Augustine's, Canterbury ....... i 

II St. Albans 12 

III Battle Abbey 28 

IV Beaulieu 39 

V BucKFAST Abbey 49 

VI Bury St. Edmund's 58 

VII Crowland 79 

VIII Evesham 89 

IX. FuRNESs Abbey 98 

X Fountains 112 

XI Glastonbury 134 

XII Gloucester 155 

XIII Jervaulx 169 

XIV St. Mary's, York 181 

XV Milton .189 

XVI Netley 197 

XVII Pershore 210 

XVIII RiEVAULx 221 

XIX ROMSEY 234 

XX Sherborne 247 

XXI Titchfield 258 

XXII Tintern 269 

XXIII Torre Abbey 283 

XXIV Thorney 292 

XXV Whitby 300 

[ xiii ] 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXVI WOBURN 312 

XXVII Waltham Abbey 325 

XXVIII Waverley ^ ... 334 

XXIX Westminster 345 

XXX Welbeck 362 

XXXI Whalley 370 



[xiv] 



ilUustrattoitB 

Westminster Abbey: Nave and Choir from the 

West Frontispiece 

Gateway, St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury • • . . 3 

St. Albans Cathedral from Verulam Hills . . • . 13 

St. Albans Cathedral: the Norman Tower .... 21 

Gateway, Battle Abbey . 29 

Beaulieu Abbey: Door OF the Abbey Church . . ► . 41 

Beaulieu: THE Abbot's House 45. 

The Neighbourhood of Buckfast Abbey 51 

Buckfast Abbey 55 

Bury St. Edmund's: the Abbey Gateway 61 

The Abbot's Bridge, Bury St. Edmund's 67 

Crowland Abbey » . . 81 

The Abbot's Bridge^ Crowland 85 

Evesham Abbey 91 

FuRNESS Abbey loi 

The Cloisters, Furness Abbey 107 

Fountains Abbey: the "Surprise View" 113 

Fountains Abbey from the South-east 117 

Fountains Abbey: the Cloisters ........ 123 

A Bridge, Fountains Abbey 129 

Glastonbury Abbey: St. Joseph's Chapel 135 

Glastonbury Abbey: the Abbot's Kitchen and Glaston- 
bury Tor 141 ^ 

Glastonbury Abbey: Remains of the Great Tower and 

Other Buildings 147 

[XV] 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Gloucester Cathedral at Sunset 153 

Gloucester Cathedral: the Choir 157 

Gloucester Cathedral from St. Catherine's Meadows . 161 

Cloister and Lavatorium, Gloucester Cathedral . . 165 

Jervaulx Abbey 171 

St. Mary's Abbey, York 183 

Milton Abbas 191 

Netley Abbey: the East Window i99 

Netley Abbey: the Cloisters 203 

Netley Abbey, Looking West 207 

Pershore Abbey 211 

RiEVAULX Abbey: Early Morning 219 

RiEVAULX Abbey from the South-east 223 

RiEVAULX Abbey from the Terrace 227 

RiEVAULX : Church and Refectory 231 

RiEVAULX Abbey from the South 235 

RoMSEY Abbey 239 

RoMSEY Abbey: the Nuns' Doorway 243 

Sherborne Abbey from the South-east 249 

Sherborne Abbey: Choir and East. Window 253 

TiTCHFiELD Abbey 259 

TiNTERN Abbey and the Wye 271 

TiNTERN Abbey from the South-east 275 

Tintern Abbey: Interior 279 

Torre Abbey 285 

Thorney Abbey 293 

Whitby Abbey and Town 301 

Whitby Abbey from the South-west 307 

WoBURN Abbey 313 

The Abbot's Oak^ Woburn 319 

[xvi] 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGB 

Waltham Abbey 327 

Waverley Abbey 335 

Westminster Abbey from the South-east 347 

Westminster Abbey: the South Ambulatory .... 353 

Entrance to Henry VIFs Chapel^ Westminster Abbey . 357 

Welbeck Abbey 363 

Whalley Abbey: the Abbot's House 371 



[xvii ] 



ST. AUGUSTINE'S, CANTERBURY 

VERY little remains to mark the place where 
once stood the first monastic establishment 
made on the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons 
to Christianity. Of the church only a few 
broken bits of late Roman work, with, to the south, some 
ruins of the Chapel of St. Pancras with its tomb and an- 
cient altar, survive to tell the tale of wanton destruction. 
Even the tower of St. Ethelbert, which was built at the 
west end of the church in 1047, and probably was so 
termed because it held the great bell called by that name, 
was pulled down only in the last century. Of the mon- 
astery, besides the entrance gate built by Abbot Fyndon 
in 1300, the cemetery gate and the present college refec- 
tory are all that are left of the extensive buildings, which 
had a frontage of some 250 feet and the enclosure wall 
of which shut in sixteen acres. The present college re- 
fectory was the monastic guest hall, and its open roof 
remains unchanged to the present day. The wreckers 
of the sixteenth century, the neglect of succeeding gen- 
erations and the active spoliation of those who sought 
stones for building or for mending the roads in the 

[I] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

neighbourhood, have done their work of destruction only 
too well. 

The story of the abbey of St. Augustine's is, on the 
whole, uneventful, although not uninteresting. Canter- 
bury became the earliest centre of Anglo-Saxon Chris- 
tianity and civilisation, and the abbey was apparently 
the first foundation made by the newly-converted King 
Ethelbert, and St. Augustine, the apostle of our race, for 
the firm establishment of the religious life according to 
the rule of St. Benedict, and in order to serve as the seat 
of learning in the newly-Christianised kingdom. Ethel- 
bert was baptized in the year 597, probably in the old 
church of St. Martin, used by Queen Bertha for Chris- 
tian worship before the coming of Augustine. This 
chapel was situated in the suburbs of the city and with- 
out its walls, whilst near at hand, apparently, there was 
a temple for the worship of the Saxon deities, which at 
the request of Ethelbert, St. Augustine dedicated as a 
Christian church under the patronage of St. Pancras, the 
boy martyr of Rome. The spot was chosen outside the 
walls in order that it might form the burial place for 
kings and prelates, since by Saxon and British as well as 
by Roman law " burial within the city walls " was pro- 
hibited. In this case the dedication to the boy St. Pan- 
cras was probably suggested by the memory of the Saxon 
youths of the Roman forum who, according to the well- 
known story, induced Pope St. Gregory the Great to 
think of the conversion of England. In the first instance 
then, it would appear that the situation of St. Augustine's 

[2] 




S(>^* . MWJI?^. ■...W-...v^...-i4«»:U 



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GATEWAY, ST. AUGUSTINE S ABBEY, CANTERBURY 



ST. AUGUSTINE'S, CANTERBURY 

Abbey was chosen as the place of burial for kings, pre- 
lates and others. It was on the road to Rutupiae, the 
port of embarkation for Gaul, now Richborough, from 
Ethelbert's capital, and it has been suggested that it was 
intended to make an English Appian Way. 

In a very few years Ethelbert determined to establish 
in the same place a monastery under the patronage of 
SS. Peter and Paul. This was in 605, but in 613 the 
church was dedicated to St. Laurence, and the body of 
St. Augustine was transported hither and buried in the 
porch. From this time the renown of the place increased 
since it became known as the burial place of the illus- 
trious dead; and almost from the first the monastery 
became known as St. Augustine's Abbey. Its early 
greatness was undoubtedly due to the fame of those who 
were buried in the church, and until the death of Arch- 
bishop Cuthbert in 758, all the Archbishops of Can- 
terbury had their last resting-places at St. Augustine's, 
which was known as the Mater primaria, the " first 
mother " of all such English institutions. Indeed, long 
after it had ceased to hold its pre-eminence as a place of 
sepulture, popes speak of it as " the firstborn," the " first 
and chief mother of monasteries in England," and as " the 
Roman chapel in England," whilst the archbishops are 
warned if they visit it, not to do so as its prelate or with 
authority, but as the brother of the monks. Whilst the 
abbot of St. Albans had the papal grant permitting him 
to sit first in all English meetings of the Benedictine 
Order, the abbot of St. Augustine's was privileged by 

[5] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

Pope Leo IX to sit among the Benedictine prelates in 
general councils next to the abbot of Monte Cassino. 

As I have said, it was undoubtedly the presence of the 
illustrious and sainted dead which gave such renown to 
the abbey, and in particular it was the shrine of St. Au- 
gustine which attracted crowds of pilgrims to the church 
from the earliest times of English Christianity until the 
martyrdom of St. Thomas in the neighbouring church 
diverted the stream of devotion to the cathedral. Indeed 
the list of the dead who slept the sleep of the just at St. 
Augustine's is most remarkable and makes us all the more 
regret that in the sixteenth century no greater respect 
was paid to the tombs and remains of kings and queens 
than to the relics of the saints. Here are the names of 
some few whose tombs were then ruthlessly destroyed 
and their remains scattered to the winds: King Ethel- 
bert and his Queen Bertha, who, together with Letard, 
Bishop of Soissons and chaplain of the Queen, rested in 
the portico of St. Martin's; the bodies of King Eadbald 
and Emma his Queen were in the porch at St. Catherine's, 
where also were the tombs of King Ercombert and Lo- 
thaire with the latter's daughter Mildred, and two other 
kings; Archbishops Augustine, Laurence, Mellitus, Jus- 
tus, Honorius and Deusdedit were in the porch of the 
church; Archbishops Theodore, Brithwald, Tatwin and 
Nothelm in the church itself. 

The centre of devotion at St. Augustine's was, as I 
have said, naturally the shrine of St. Augustine himself, 
the apostle of our race. A picture of the fifteenth cen- 

[6] 



ST. AUGUSTINE'S, CANTERBURY 

tury, copied in Dugdale's Monasticon from a manu- 
script in Trinity College, Cambridge, shows roughly the 
disposition of the altar at St. Augustine's, with the bodies 
of saints and other relics surrounding it. Two doors, 
one on either side of the Great Altar, led into the feretory 
where most of the relics were placed. At the most east- 
ernly end over an altar dedicated to the Holy Trinity in 
1240 rested the shrine containing the body of St. Augus- 
tine, and on the right of this were three other shrines 
with the bodies of St. Laurence, St. Justus and St. 
Deusdedit, whilst on the left were similarly disposed 
those of St. Mellitus, St. Honorius and St. Theodore. 
Two semicircular chapels, one on either side, contained 
on the right the body of St. Mildred with an altar dedi- 
cated in 1270, and on the left an altar to SS. Stephen, 
Laurence and Vincent, with the shrine containing the 
relics of St. Adrian the Abbot, and companion of St. 
Theodore. In the space between these chapels and the 

back of the High Altar were arranged the shrines of St. 
Nothelm and St. Lombert on the one side, and those of St. 
Brithwald and St. Tatwin on the other. 

The High Altar was dedicated in A. D. 1325 to SS. 
Peter and Paul, St. Augustine, the apostle of the English, 
and St. Ethelbert, King. Above it were the body of St. 
Letard and other relics: on the altar rested the shrine of 
St. Ethelbert and on either side were the precious books 
which, according to tradition. Pope St. Gregory had 
sent over to England by St. Augustine. These books 
were appropriately called by Elmham, the chronicler 

[7] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

of the abbey, primitice librorum ecclesicB Anglicana — the 
first books of the English Church. That St. Gregory 
the Great did send over many manuscripts to England 
by St. Augustine or his followers we know from St. 
Bede, whose information was obtained from the eighth 
Abbot of St. Augustine's. Although no doubt many of 
these valuable volumes must have perished in the fire 
which partially wrecked the abbey in 1168, Thorne, in 
relating the catastrophe in his chronicle, is satisfied that 
his monastery still possessed at least some of these pre- 
cious books, a tradition which was handed down by Le- 
land on the eve of the dissolution. At the present day it 
is believed by many that the Gospel Book in Corpus 
Christi College, Cambridge, and the celebrated Psalter, 
Vespasian A. I., in the British Musuem, are two of the 
volumes originally placed over the altar in St. Augus- 
tine's abbey church as being among the " Gregorian 
books " sent by the Pope to England on its conversion to 
the Faith. Others, it is right to add, consider that they 
are only copies of these volumes. 

I have said that the long history of this Benedictine 
abbey was, on the whole, uneventful. This may be taken 
to mean that there were few incidents to interfere with 
the even course of the life lived in the cloister and devoted 
to the works of religion. " Happy the nation that has 
no history " is, perhaps, more true of a religious com- 
munity such as that of St. Augustine's, outside the walls 
of Canterbury, than of a people. It had its difficulties, 
of course, and there was at times considerable friction 

[8] 



ST. AUGUSTINE'S, CANTERBURY 

with the archbishops as to the right of giving the abbatial 
blessing and of demanding an oath of obedience. Its 
Benedictine brethren in the neighbouring Priory of 
Christ Church were not always on the best of terms with 
it. But these differences did not last long, at least not 
long in the whole course of its life, and from the facts 
as they are stated it would seem that in all these — shall 
we call them contests? — St. Augustine's was only claim- 
ing and clinging to its rights and privileges, as every 
corporation is bound to do. 

John Sturvey, otherwise known as John Essex, was the 
last abbot of St. Augustine's, and in July, 1583, coerced 
by Dr. Layton the King's Commissioner, he resigned his 
office and the property of the abbey into the King's 
hands. It has commonly been thought that when the end 
came a dark shadow rested over the good name of the 
house. In the later centuries that preceded its destruc- 
tion St. Augustine's was naturally somewhat overshad- 
owed by its great monastic neighbour of Christ Church, 
which, as the See of the Metropolitan, occupied the first 
place in the Church of England. The monastery was 
not known in any way to have moved with the times: it 
had no particular reputation for learning, nor special 
usefulness, nor work, at a time when men's minds gener- 
ally were being stirred by the revival of letters. Besides 
this negatively bad character, positive charges of the 
most odious kind were formulated by the visitors of 
Henry against the last abbot, John Essex, and some at 
least of his monks. Probably there are few in these days 

[9] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

who are willing to believe such charges made by such 
witnesses without some evidence other that the word of 
the discredited and interested royal agents. Luckily in 
the case of the last abbot and one of his monks, against 
whom the most revolting suggestions had been made, 
we have the assertion of one who knew them well that 
they were men of upright character and exceptional cul- 
ture. The conversation in which this testimony is given 
is supposed to have taken place in the country house to 
which John Essex, or Vokes, as he is called, the last abbot, 
had retired, and the other two taking part in it are John 
Dygon, the last prior of the house, and Dr. Nicholas 
Wotton, who, becoming first Dean of the Cathedral of 
Christ Church upon the expulsion of the monks, was 
considered to be one of the most brilliant men of his 
time. Though the conversation was imaginary, John 
Twyne, the antiquary, who composed it, declares that 
not only were the characters capable in life of sustain- 
ing the roles he set them, but that frequently in reality 
he had heard similar discussions carried on between 
them. He adds, and this is much to the point, " Above 
all the many people whom I have ever known I have 
especially revered two, because in thes^ days they were 
above all others remarkable for the high character of 
their moral lives and for their excellent knowlege of all 
antiquity. These were John Vokes and John Dygon. 
The first was the most worthy abbot, the second the most 
upright prior of the ancient monastery of St. Augustine — 
and the abbot was a hale old man of the highest personal 

[lO] 



ST. AUGUSTINE'S, CANTERBURY 

sanctity of life." In this book, therefore, in place of the 
abbot being a man given up to odious vice, we find a 
cultured, cultivated, courteous Christian gentleman, v^or- 
thy, as Nicholas Wotton declares, " of all reverence and 
respect." We see him as the friend of every kind of 
learning and ready to encourage it in others: v^e see him 
as an antiquary, to whose well-stored mind men were 
only too willing to appeal for information: one who 
could understand what a loss to scholarship the destruc- 
tion of the Canterbury libraries had been, and one who 
on the very eve of the destruction of his house was in 
communication with learned men in Rome to procure 
some early prints of the classics for the library of St. 
Augustine's Abbey. 



["] 



CUyapt^r ©wo 

ST. ALBANS 

ON the great north road, the Watling Street 
of Roman times, and at the first stage out of 
London, as it was accounted in pre-railway 
days, stands the town of St. Albans. Tower- 
ing above the other buildings of the place rise what 
Ruskin somewhere calls the "great cliff walls" of the 
old abbey church. Looked at from any point of view — 
from the poor cress-grown little river Ver, or from the 
rising ground to the south, or from the crumbling walls 
of Roman Verulam — this great church stands out from 
the rest of the surroundings as an object not easily to be 
forgotten. In some ways it is unlike any other building 
in England ; the long straight ridge of the roof, the long- 
est of any English church, is a fitting cresting to the 
cliffs of walls; the solid and almost sternly simple charac- 
ter of the transepts, especially as they appeared before 
the hand of the so-called restorer was heavy upon them, 
are fit supports for the low square central tower which 
crowns the vast buildings spreading out below it. From 
any point of view the church is truly stupendous! But 
to those who know its history there is something sad and 
melancholy about the solitary pile, as it stands now a 

[12] 



ST. ALBANS 

silent and majestic monument of what St. Albans once 
was in the days of its glory. Its walls once looked down 
upon a vast assemblage of buildings of which it was the 
centre; towers and gables, courtyards and cloister; kitch- 
ens and guest-houses, stables and offices stretched out far 
over the space to the south and west, a veritable town of 
conventual buildings. All these have vanished, alas! 
and to-day there remain of them only the broken and 
defaced ruins of the old gatehouse; even the glorious 
church itself was saved, in the rapacious days of Henry 
VIII, from becoming the common quarry of the neigh- 
bourhood, by the timely purchase of its desecrated walls 
for £400 by the people of the township. 

The story of St. Albans goes back to the close of the 
eighth century. About that time Offa, king of the Mer- 
cians, in recognition of his sins and in particular in expia- 
tion for the murder of Ethelbert, king of East Anglia, 
vowed to build a monastery for a hundred monks. He 
chose the spot upon which, in 401, St. Lupus of Troyes 
had erected a church over the relics of St. Alban, the 
protomartyr of Britain, who had suffered death in A. D. 
304, during the Diocletian persecution. These relics were 
translated by Offa to his new foundation in 793, and in 
this way was begun the great Benedictine house of St. 
Albans, which from the first was enriched by the gifts 
of the English kings and by spiritual privileges accorded 
by Pope Adrian I and his successors. In the year 930 
the Abbey was attacked by the Danes and plundered. 
The relics of its patron, St. Alban, were carried off to 

[15] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

Denmark; but subsequently, through a clever ruse of 
the sacristan of the abbey, who was inconsolable for the 
loss, they were recovered by the monks, and " Master 
John of St. Albans, the incomparable Goldsmith," as the 
chonicler calls him, " made the first shrine for the 
relics." 

The mention of the shrine suggests some brief account 
of the subsequent history of this work of art. The be- 
ginning of the twelfth century was a time most remark- 
able at St. Albans for the perfection of its metal work. 
A renowned goldsmith, by name Anketil, who had been 
one of the chief artificers in precious metals at the Court 
of Denmark and the designer of the coins of that king- 
dom, returned to England and became a monk of St. 
Albans. Geoffrey, the sixteenth abbot of the monastery, 
who ruled the house from A. D. 1119 to 1146, was not 
slow to recognise the importance of making use of his 
exceptional talents in restoring the shrine for the relics of 
the patron Saint. Leofric, the tenth abbot, during a 
famine, had sold the treasures of the church to feed the 
poor, " retaining only certain precious gems for which 
he could find no purchaser, and some most wonderfully 
carved stones, commonly called cameos, the greater part 
of which were reserved to ornament the shrine when it 
should be made." So in 11 24 the great work was begun. 
And, says the chronicler, " it happened that by the la- 
bour of Dom Anketil the work prospered and grew so 
as to claim the admiration of all who saw it." The chief 
part of the shrine proper was apparently what would 

[16] 



ST. ALBANS 

to-day be called repousse work, and the figures that the 
goldsmith monk hammered out in the golden plates were 
made solid by cement poured into the hollows at the back. 

Here, for a time, the work was delayed, and the metal 
cresting which had been designed to crown the whole 
was left till more prosperous times. But to enrich the 
work somewhat more, if possible, the antiques called 
sardios oniclios, which, as the chronicle says, are "vul- 
garly cameos," were brought out of the treasury and fit- 
ted into the gold work. To this resting place the relics 
of the Saint were translated on August 2, 1129. Not 
long after, however, the poor of the neighbourhood were 
again afflicted with great scarcity, and the abbot to re- 
lieve their necessities had to strip away from the shrine 
much of the gold-worked plates and turn the precious 
metal into money. After a few succeeding years of pros- 
perity, however, Abbott Geoffrey was again enabled to 
restore " the shrine with silver and gold and gems more 
precious than before." 

The same abbot employed Dom Anketil, the metal- 
working artist, to fashion a wonderful chalice and paten 
of gold as a present to Pope Celestine. The account we 
have also of the wonderful vestments with which he en- 
riched the Sacristy proves that this first half of the 
twelfth century was an age of great artistic work at St. 
Albans. We read of copes, for instance, in sets of sevens 
and fours, of chasubles and dalmatics, of worked albs 
and of dorsals, all thickly woven with gold and studded 
with jewels. So rich, indeed, were they that, alas! they 

[17] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

tempted Abbot Geoffrey's successor in a time of strait- 
ness by the wealth of their material, and they were burnt 
to ashes to recover the metal used in the manufacture of 
the golden cloth, or laid as more solid ornaments on to 
the finished material. 

In speaking of the " shrine " of St. Albans we have 
been carried somewhat too quickly over the general story 
of the abbey. As in the case of most of the other Saxon 
houses, St. Albans suffered by the coming of the Norman 
Conqueror. Abbot Frederick, who was a relation of 
King Canute, began his rule only in 1066, the year of 
the battle of Hastings. His sympathies were with his 
countrymen, and in order to impede William's march to 
Berkhampstede, he caused the trees which grew along 
the roadside to be felled across it. At Berkhampstede, 
too, he obtained from the Conqueror the promise to re- 
spect the laws of the kingdom, and in particular those 
of Edward the Confessor. Then, fearing the King's 
vengeance, he fled to Ely, where in a brief time he 
died. 

Frederick's death opened the way to the appointment 
of a Norman Superior, and after keeping the abbatial 
office vacant for a time, William appointed Paul, a 
monk of Caen and a nephew of Archbishop Lanf ranc, to 
the office. Here, for a time, as in other places, the 
English monks had to submit to foreign customs and to 
witness the neglect of the cultus of the old Saxon saints, 
and the introduction of that to which their conquerors 
had been accustomed. Thus the Bee customal was en- 

[18] 



ST. ALBANS 

forced at St. Albans, and the gift of eight psalters to the 
choir by Abbot Paul in 1085 seems to suggest that the 
old version of the psalms used in England was at this 
time changed from the French or " Gallican " recension. 

This Abbot Paul, however, began the erection of the 
great church, portions of which still remain as his last- 
ing monument, and which recall the similar and con- 
temporary building in his native city of Caen. The six 
easterns bays on the north, together with some of the 
outer walling work, are mere remnants of this early 
building. Abbot Paul did not live to see the completion 
of his great work, but died in 1097, and it was not until 
1 1 15 that the church of St. Albans was consecrated by 
the Archbishop of Rouen in the presence of King Henry 
I, his queen and the principal nobles and ecclesiastics 
of the kingdom. On this occasion 300 poor people were 
entertained in the court of the monastery. 

In 1 1 19 Geoffrey de Gorham became abbot, and the 
story of his connexion with the abbey is curious and in- 
teresting. He had come originally as a layman from 
Maine at the invitation of the abbot to teach in the St. 
Albans school. Something delayed his journey, and on 
reaching the place he, finding the position already oc- 
cupied, went on to Dunstable to lecture until such time 
as there was a vacancy at St. Albans. Whilst there he 
wrote a miracle play of St. Katherine for the perform- 
ance of which he borrowed the abbey choral copes. The 
night after the representation, his house, where the vest- 
ments were, was burned down and the copes were all 

[19] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

destroyed in the flames. In atonement he offered him- 
self as a monk at St. Albans, and he was subsequently 
chosen as abbot. It was because he was mindful of the 
misfortune to the copes that in after years, as Matthew 
Paris notes, he was careful to provide rich choir copes 
for use in his church. 

It is, of course, impossible to follow the history of the 
abbey in detail, and a very brief summary alone can be 
given. Of the church as it stands a few words only may 
be allowed. As I have said, the six eastern bays on the 
north side are Norman, the rest date from 1214-35. On 
the south side the five western bays are of the same date, 
the rest was begun by Abbot Eversdon in decorated work 
about 1323 and raised by 1326 to the triforium. This 
building was necessitated by the collapse of a great por- 
tion of the church, and the fall of many of the pillars 
during the singing of Mass in the first-named year. Its 
reparation was continued by Abbot Mentmore, the suc- 
cessor of Richard de Wallingford, known to posterity 
for the construction of a celebrated astronomical clock, 
representations of which are to be found in some of the 
St. Albans books in the British Museum. 

Michael de Mentmore constructed the ceiling of the 
south aisle of the church, which had been newly built, 
together with the cloister. He also furnished the con- 
vent with books and vestments. In 1341 he was called 
upon to baptize Edmund, the fifth son of King Edward 
III. He died in 1349, the year of the great pestilence, 
or Black Death as it is now called ; and with him at that 

[20] 



ST. ALBANS 

calamitous time died the prior, sub-prior and forty-seven 
of the brethren of St. Albans. 

The original rood screen erected in 1360 has on either 
side of the rood-altar a door which opened into a choir 
entry, a passage being left between the stalls and the 
screen. The choir projected three bays into the nave, 
and the presbytery had three bays in length. The great 
reredos, built at a cost of 1,100 marks by Abbot Walling- 
ford (1476-94), has two doors opening into the feretory 
for processional and other liturgical purposes. The 
story goes that the screen was suggested by that of Win- 
chester, returning from the dedication of which the St. 
Albans monks with their abbot determined to erect one 
somewhat similar. The staircase to the monks' dor- 
mitor}'" is in the southwest angle of the southwest tran- 
sept; at the level of the cloister- roof it communicated 
with a passage leading to a watching-loft, still remain- 
ing in the west wall. It was opposite to this that once 
stood the great image of the Blessed Virgin, before 
which, as the chronicle tells us, stood a taper wreathed 
with flowers. 

In the feretory may still be seen a watching chamber 
or loft erected in 1430, and the mutilated remains of the 
base of St. Albans shrine in Purbeck marble with qua- 
trefoiled apertures, below canopied niches for figures. 
It is of fourteenth-century work, and is carved with the 
crucifix, with the Blessed Virgin and St. John, and with 
the acts of the Saint. Upon this base stood the wonder- 
ful shrine in precious metal and its almost equally won- 

[23] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

derful cover. This last was made by ^' that most renowned 
artificer," and he is called, " Master John the Gold- 
smith." " In a few years," writes the chronicler, " this 
laborious, sumptuous, and most artistic work was hap- 
pily accomplished; and he (i. e., Abbot Simon) placed 
it in its present elevated position that is above the High 
Altar facing the celebrant, so that every priest offering 
Mass upon the altar may have both in sight and in heart 
the memory of the martyr, since visible to the eye of the 
celebrant was represented the martyrdom or decapita- 
tion." On the western end of the shrine, in well-raised 
metal work and surrounded by gems and precious 
golden knobs, the artist enthroned an image of the 
Blessed Virgin holding her Son to her breast and seated 
on her throne. Above this structure again rose the roof 
of this feretory, and at its four angles were placed 
"windowed turrets" surrounded with what the writer 
calls " four lovely crystal domes with their marvels." 
Under this was the precious shrine itself which had been 
enriched by a succession of abbots with the most pre- 
cious jewels. On the top of the cresting sat an eagle in 
silver gilt with its wings outspread, which Abbot de la 
Mare had made in the fourteenth century at the cost of 
£20 — some £400 of our money. Besides this golden 
eagle fixed on the cresting of the shrine were " two suns " 
of pure gold, the long rays of which were of silver gilt 
and on the tip of each was set some precious stone. 

Lastly Abbot Whethamstede in the fifteenth century 
presented to the altar of the Saint, which stood at the 

[24] 



ST. ALBANS 

western end of the shrine, a tabula in solid silver. It was 
apparently a wonderful example of English goldsmith 
work, and was of beaten metal fully gilt. As the chon- 
icle says: "There is not thought to be another more 
grand and sumptuous in the whole of this kingdom." 
Let us try and imagine the effect of this wonderful work 
of art, no vestige of which now remains. Jewels of all 
kinds, gems, cameos, and all manner of precious stones 
thickly studded the framework of the marvellous re- 
pousse pictures, and sparkled in the light of the tapers 
ever burning round the shrine. On the cresting of the 
high-pitched roof perched the eagle with its overshadow- 
ing wings, and on either side were the golden suns with 
their jewelled rays! Such was the shrine itself, which 
thrice a year, upon Ascension day and on the two fes- 
tivals of St. Alban, was taken from its pedestal and 
borne in procession by four priests in copes, and on these 
occasions it was wont to be covered by the rich cloth of 
woven gold presented for that purpose by Thomas 
Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester. 

In speaking of St. Albans it is impossible not to men- 
tion the scriptorium and library of the Abbey. The 
Gesta Abbatum says that the nineteenth abbot did much 
to attract learned men to the cloister. He was a great 
book collector, and to him may be traced the origin of the 
school of St. Albans chroniclers, to whom we owe so 
much of our knowledge of English history. The names 
of Matthew Paris and Walsingham alone are sufficient to 
claim the gratitude of all generations for the work of the 

[25] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

St. Albans historical writers, whilst the volumes of the 
St. Albans chroniclers testify to the honesty with which 
they set down their annals and to their true historical 
methods. 

It must be added that St. Albans obtained from the 
Pope the rank of premier abbey among English Bene- 
dictine houses. The Pope who granted this privilege, 
Pope Adrian IV, had in his youth been connected with 
the monastery; his father had become a monk, and the 
son, then a youth, requested to be allowed to follow his 
parent's example. He failed, however, to satisfy those 
who were appointed to examine him as to the sufficiency 
of his learning, and he was rejected. He subsequently 
studied in Paris, and finally became Cardinal and Pope. 

Situated so near the capital and on a much-frequented 
road, the Abbey of St. Albans underwent many vicissi- 
tudes in the troubles which at various time afflicted the 
country. It suffered much at the close of the fourteenth 
century in the labour troubles from the demands of its 
tenants, and, judged by our standards, the abbots were 
not always too wise in repressing what seems to us the 
legitimate aspiration of their dependents. Its peculiar 
position in the ecclesiastical world brought with it many 
misunderstandings and not a few serious quarrels. Dur- 
ing the civil war of the fifteenth century its sympathies 
were engaged on the one side too much for its peace. 
On the whole it would appear to have been governed 
wisely and well, although a letter written by Cardinal 
Morton towards the close of its long history seems to sug- 

[26] 



ST. ALBANS 

gest that there were serious and even scandalous matters 
to redress. The fact, however, that as the result of the 
inquiry the superior remained unchanged, would seem 
to show that the reports, which may have been in part 
at least political, were found to be devoid of truth. At 
any rate it is obviously unjust to condemn any house or 
individual on mere rumour alone. 

Before the close of the history of St. Albans the art of 
printing was introduced and seems to have been practised 
from 1480 in the monastery. On the death of Abbot 
Ramridge, Cardinal Wolsey obtained leave from the 
King to hold the abbacy of St. Albans in commendam — 
the first and luckily, almost the only instance of the 
pernicious practice in England. On his death, however, 
in 1530, the monks were allowed to make choice of a 
superior in the person of Robert Caton, prior of Nor- 
wich. On his death in 1538, the prior of the house, 
Richard Boreman or Stevenage, was chosen to fill his 
place. And as he surrendered his house to the King, it 
has usually been supposed that his appointment was 
made for the purpose of handing over his charge to his 
royal master. 



[27] 




BATTLE ABBEY 

ATTLE ABBEY was founded by William the 
Conqueror to commemorate the battle of Has- 
tings and to fulfil his vow to erect such a mon- 
astery should he obtain the victory in that de- 
cisive fight. The foundation was dedicated to St. Mar- 
tin, and the building was placed upon the rising ground 
which looks down upon the rolling valleys which slope 
southwards toward the bay of Hastings. It occupies the 
classic site of Senlac, where the last stand was made by 
the English under Harold, on the memorable day of the 
battle of Hastings, October 14, 1066. In consequence of 
his vow William began to build the abbey a year after 
the fight, and William of Malmesbury records the tradi- 
tion that the High Altar was placed on the very spot 
where Harold fell, and where the English royal standard 
was found after the battle. Mr. Gough, the eminent 
English antiquary, writing in 1789, says: "This spot is 
just at the eastern white gate of the yard wall : the foun- 
dations were not long since removed, the site having 
served as a burial place for Catholics." 

It is said that amongst those who heard William's 
vow on the night before Hastings was a monk named 
William Faber. He had formerly been in the Con- 

[28] 



BATTLE ABBEY 

queror's service, but had renounced the profession of 
arms to become a religious at the abbey of Marmoutier. 
When the descent of the Duke upon England was de- 
termined upon, the monk, William, joined the army as 
a chaplain and, on hearing the vow before the battle, 
proposed that, in the event of the abbey being built, it 
should be dedicated to St. Martin, the patron of his 
monastery of Marmoutier; this William at once prom- 
ised should be done. 

According to the Conqueror's original design " the 
monastery of St. Martin of Battle " was intended to serve 
for 140 monks, although in fact provision was ultimately 
made for sixty only. The Abbey of Marmoutier in 
Normandy furnished the religious, who were, of course, 
Benedictines. A monk named Blancard was destined 
to be the first abbot of the new foundation, but after go- 
ing back to his monastery to make some necessary ar- 
rangements on taking up his office, he was drowned 
whilst crossing back to England. Another monk of 
Marmoutier, named Gausbert, was thereupon appointed 
in 1076. 

King William did not live to see the completion of his 
work, for although the church was really begun in 1076 
it was not entirely finished until 1095. When completed 
it measured 315 feet in length, and the chronicler relates 
that the Conqueror had intended to make it 500 feet. 
According to the legend. King William dreamt that he 
was to build a church the length of which in feet should 
equal in number the years his descendants were to rule 

[31] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

in England. Thrice in his dream he essayed to set the 
foundations east and west 500 feet apart, but each time 
the length measured only 315 feet, and in consequence 
the length of the church was determined at this measure. 

When William the Conqueror lay dying at Rouen, he 
was not unmindful of the abbey he had raised in Eng- 
land to commemorate his conquest. He charged his son 
William that, on his return to take the crown which was 
to be his inheritance, he should add liberally to the en- 
dowments of the house. He himself, moreover, gave, 
says the chronicle, " his royal pallium and very costly 
gems, as well as three hundred amulets wrought of gold 
and silver, to many of which were attached chains of 
those metals, and which contained innumerable relics of 
the saints. He gave likewise a feretory in the form of 
an altar, in which were also many relics and upon which 
in his expeditions Mass was wont to be celebrated." 

There is a good deal left of the domestic buildings of 
Battle; of the church not much; a fragment of the south- 
west end of the church, the cloister door, the south wall 
of the nave and the crypt of the Lady Chapel are all 
that remain. Of the claustral portion what still stand 
are the buildings on the west walk of the cloister of nine 
bays; portions of the refectory built in 1275 on the south 
side; traces of the entrance to the chapter-house on the 
east. On this same side were the dormitory, 154 feet 
in length, and other buildings, including the calefactory 
or common room, 60 feet by 37, a magnificent room with 
pillars. 

[32] 



BATTLE ABBEY 

The majestic gateway, with the courthouse and por- 
ter's lodge on either side, as well as the enclosure wall, 
built in the first half of the fourteenth century, are in 
excellent preservation to-day; so, too, is the guest-hall 
on the southwest which is 195 feet long by 40 feet broad, 
and now is divided up into store chambers, etc. 

The first Abbot, Gausbert, appointed, as already re- 
lated, in 1076, died in the very year of the dedication of 
the church, and, in place of allowing a free election to 
the monks, William Rufus, by the advice of Anselm, im- 
posed upon the monastery Henry, the prior of Christ 
Church, Canterbury. He was received at Battle on June 
II, 1096, and at once sent to his old monastery for a num- 
ber of monks of that house to help him in governing 
Battle. This naturally caused great dissatisfaction and 
led to many difficulties. 

In 1107, the abbacy being vacant. King Henry sent 
for a certain monk of Caen, " renowned for his piety and 
prudence," Ralph by name, and appointed him abbot. 
He was already well known in England, as he had come 
over with Archbishop Lanfranc and had been for some 
time in the Monastery at Rochester. " Under the ad- 
ministration of this venerable man," says the chronicler, 
" the abbey attained such a pitch of honour, by his prov- 
idence, by the faithful care of the brethren, and by the 
display of hospitality to all without needless delay, that 
it became second to none of the monasteries of England in 
regard of religion, bounty, clemency, charity and the 
reputation of humanity." 

[33] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

It was during the rule of this abbot that a feretory was 
made to contain the relics of the saints given to the mon- 
astery by the Conqueror and others which they had since 
obtained. This shrine was made of gold and silver, and 
is said to have been of "very choice workmanship and 
adorned with many valuable jewels." 

Under Abbot Ralph the abbey prospered exceedingly 
both within and without. Loving the beauty of God's 
house, he caused the church to be roofed with lead and 
completed what had been left undone in the general struc- 
ture. He added to the buildings of the monastery and 
decorated it in a manner suitable to its purpose. What 
the chronicle says of him is too interesting not to be given 
at length. " Although he continually governed those 
who were under his authority, yet he was himself ever 
obedient to the rules and commanded no one as a master. 
He sustained the infirmities of others and made them 
strong. His deeds corresponded with what he taught: 
his example preceded his precept. He inculcated a 
prompt attendance at divine service and, supporting his 
aged limbs upon his stafif, he always came to choir, even 
before the young men. Ever first in the church, he was 
uniformly the last to quit it. Thus he was a pattern of 
good works; a Martha and a Mary. He was the serpent 
and the dove : he was a Noah amidst the waters. Whilst 
he never willingly rejected the raven, he always gladly 
received the dove. He governed the clean and the un- 
clean and was a prudent ruler under all circumstances. 
. . . [Whilst seeing to the cultivation of the monastic 

[34] 



BATTLE ABBEY 

lands] he overlooked not the spiritual husbandry, tilling 
earthly hearts with the ploughshare of good doctrine in 
many books which he wrote, stimulating them thereby to 
bear the fruit of good works; and though his style was 
homely, yet was it rich in the way of morality. 

" In the sparingness of his food he was a Daniel; in the 
sufferings of his body a Job; in the bowing of his knees a 
Bartholomew, bending them full often in supplication, 
though he could scarce move them in walking. Every 
day he recited the whole Psalter in order, hardly ceasing 
in his genuflexions and his Psalmody three days before 
his death. Neither his racking cough nor his vomiting 
of blood, nor his advanced age, nor the attenuation of his 
flesh to hardly more than mere skin, availed to daunt this 
man nor to turn him aside from any point of his elevated 
piety. But lol after many agonies and bodily suflFerings, 
when he was eighty-four years of age and had been a 
monk sixty years and thirty-six days, and when he had 
been Abbot of Battle seventeen years and twenty days, 
the great Householder summoned him to the reward of 
his day's penny. It was on the fourth of the Kalends of 
September in the evening of the day, that this holy, sweet, 
and humble father departed. He was lying upon his 
lowly couch, after partaking of a little food, and had 
devoutly blessed several of the brethren, when the end 
came." 

A considerable portion of the chronicle of Battle Abbey 
in the times immediately following this is taken up with 
the settlements of disputes as to jurisdiction and the 

[35] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

rights of bishops over the abbey. In one of these St. 
Thomas Becket appears as the King's Chancellor in the 
great suit which was heard before the King in person. 

Of one of these abbots, Odo, the chronicler writes: 
^^ He was a pattern of a holy life to all in word and deed. 
Rich in the bowels of compassion, he relieved every one 
who sought his assistance. His hospitality knew no 
respect of persons, the abbey gates stood open to all 
comers who needed either refreshment or lodging. For 
those persons whom the rule of the establishment forbade 
to sleep within the abbey he provided entertainment with- 
out the circuit of its walls. He associated with the 
brethren in all the Divine Office in the abbey church, in 
reading and in meditation in the cloister; he took his food 
in the refectory, in short, he was as one of themselves 
except that he did not sleep in the common dormitory. 
Nothing of pride was to be seen in his carriage, his actions 
and his habits, and nothing that savoured of levity." 

On the whole the lives of the series of abbots, until the 
dissolution of the monastery in 1539, do not present any 
features of particular interest to the general reader. The 
even tenor of the regular observance in the monastery, 
which was apparently disturbed by nothing which merited 
to be specially recorded, may be taken to speak well of 
men whose chief duty, according to the terms of their 
foundation, was to pray for the souls of those who had 
perished in the great slaughter when William I con- 
quered England. 

The last abbot, John Hamond, was elected in 1529. 

[36] 



BATTLE ABBEY 

When Dr. Layton, in 1536, came to Battle as one of 
Henry VIII's commissioners, he did not find Abbot 
Hamond as ready as he wished to meet the fate that 
awaited his monastery. He ordered him to court to be 
dealt with by Crumwell himself, and he thus bespeaks 
his master's attention to his case: "The abbot of Battle 
is the varaste hayne betle and buserde, and the arants 
chorle that ever I see. In all other places whereat I come, 
specially the black sort of develish monks, I am sorry to 
know as I do. Surely I thynke they be paste amendement 
and that God hath utterly withdrawn his grace from 
them." 

Speed, on the authority of these visitors, a specimen 
of judicial temper is given above and whose testimony 
no one now credits, represents Abbot Hamond and several 
of his monks as having an infamous reputation. " This," 
says Dugdale, " is hardly reconcilable with the grant 
made to this abbot of a pension at the dissolution, par- 
ticularly as the instrument which bestowed the pension 
stipulated that it should be vacated in case of the King 
preferring him to the cure of souls." The same applies 
also to the other monks of Battle who were included in 
those secret and never-inquired-into accusations. More- 
over, it must be remembered that these charges were 
made to Crumwell before the meeting of Parliament in 
1536, which dissolved the smaller religious houses and 
when, according to the King's positive assertion, made 
before the passing of that Act, there was actual evidence 
to show that in the greater monasteries, of which Battle 

C37] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

was one, religion was right well observed and maintained. 
Finally, when three years later, in 1539, pressure was 
brought to bear upon the superiors of the greater houses 
to force them to yield the houses into the King's hands, 
John Gage and Richard Layton, w^ho went to take the 
surrender of Battle, wrote on May 26 to say that the deed 
had been signed and that all was in their hands. There 
was then no need to blacken the character of those who 
had been despoiled, and so nothing whatever is said about 
these charges and, on the contrary, pensions were granted 
to the abbot and to each of the monks, four of whom were 
university men, wath degrees in theology. 



[38] 



dliapt^r Jour 

BEAULIEU 

^^^i^HE Cistercian Abbey of Beaulieu is pictur- 
m C^\ esquely situated in the New Forest, not far 
^^^^ from Southampton Water, and opposite to its 
daughter house of Netley. Founded in 1204 
by King John, it soon became an important house of the 
Order; it sent forth colonies to Hales and Newenham as 
well as to Netley; it owned extensive landed property, 
and its superior was a mitred abbot with a seat in the 
House of Peers. Now only a few ruins remain to mark 
the place where it stood, whilst, as a curious contrast, 
Netley over the water, its comparatively humble daugh- 
ter, stands, as far at least as the church is concerned, al- 
most as perfect as the day when the royal wreckers of the 
sixteenth century left it to unprotected decay. 

At Beaulieu the remains include the sacristy and a re- 
cess for a cloister cupboard or aumbry; the front of the 
chapter house with an entrance of three arches; on the 
east side of the cloister garth the common house; on the 
west two long buildings standing over undercrofts 285 
feet in length and divided by a passage and a wall from 
the cloister. A range of seven recesses, probably for 
studies, fills the north wall, and on the south are the re- 

[39] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

fectory (125 feet by 30 feet) and the remains of the 
lavatory. In the wall of the refectory is a charming pul- 
pit, or reading place, with the stairway leading up to it. 
Of the church little or nothing is left, if we exclude the 
foundation of the main pillars, which have been uncov- 
ered. 

Besides this there is the main gateway still standing, 
the Watergate, and to the north what is variously called 
a bam and a winepress. This Watergate may, perhaps, 
suggest some explanation of why so much of the build- 
ings of Beaulieu have disappeared altogether. The 
abbey was situated on the Beaulieu river, a waterway to 
the sea which afforded an excellent opportunity for barges 
to carry off the stones quarried out of the dismantled 
walls and convey them to where they would be useful for 
some building or other. It used to be said that much 
of the material was taken to raise forts for the defence of 
the coast in this part of the country, and people were 
wont to point to Calshot Castle in particular, as being 
able to account for a good deal of the Beaulieu Abbey 
buildings in its foundations. 

But to go back to the story of this Cistercian house. 
On Its first establishment by King John in 1204, it was 
colonized by Citeaux itself. The royal charter speaks of 
it as being intended for thirty monks, but apparently 
twenty-two only came to settle in the place chosen, and 
which from its beautiful surroundings and royal founder 
was at once called Royal Beaulieu — Abbatia de Bella- 
loco Regis, A legend is connected with the foundation. 

[40] 



/ 




BEAULIEU abbey: DOOR OF THE ABBEY CHURCH 



BEAULIEU 

It is said that King John treated the Cistercians in Eng- 
land in no better way than he did his other subjects. On 
the occasion of one special demand for a large subsidy 
the abbots of the Order journeyed to Lincoln to see the 
King in person and to expostulate with him. John was 
in no amiable frame of mind, and on seeing the abbots 
and hearing what their mission was he ordered his 
mounted men to ride them down with their horses — '' an 
unjust, wicked and unheard-of order for any Christian 
man to give," says the chronicler. Of course the King's 
servants refused to use them thus and even took the abbots 
to their own lodgings. But this was not to be the end of 
the matter: according to the writer of the narrative, the 
following night, when King John had retired to bed, he 
saw in a vision or dreamt that he saw, the Judgment Seat 
set up and himself brought by the abbots before it for 
condemnation. In the result these good religious men 
were ordered by the judge to scourge the King with whips 
for his treatment of their Order. Even next morning, 
when the vision and its lesson were almost forgotten, King 
John seemed to feel the result of his castigation, at least so 
the story goes, and he consulted a friend about this strange 
experience. His adviser told him that it was evidently a 
sign that heaven was angry at the way in which he had 
treated the Cistercian abbots, and suggested that he should 
make amends to the Order by building them a house. He 
accepted the advice and promised to establish a monastery 
in the New Forest at the place now known as Beaulieu. 
The church, of which nothing but the foundations is 

[43] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

left, was 355 feet long, with double choir aisles. It was 
consecrated with great ceremony in the presence of Henry 
III, Queen Eleanor, their son Prince Edward and others, 
in 1 269. Queen Isabella, wife of the founder. King John, 
was buried in the choir of the church. In 1471 Margaret 
of Anjou took refuge in the Sanctuary at Beaulieu, and in 
149 1 Perkin Warbeck for a time was harboured within 
its walls. In this latter case, however, watch was kept 
day and night upon the place by Lord Daubigny, who 
surrounded the walls with 300 horsemen, and ultimately, 
seeing escape hopeless, Perkin Warbeck surrendered to 
them. 

In the list of abbots are to be found the names of three 
who subsequently became bishops in England. These 
were Hugh, who was made Bishop of Carlisle in 121 8 
and was the builder of the choir of his cathedral; Tide- 
man of Winchcombe, created bishop of Worcester in 
1380, and Thomas Skeffington, Bishop of Bangor in 1505, 
who built the tower of the cathedral. 

Besides the daughter-houses already named, Beaulieu 
established two cells, one in Cornwall, at a place called 
Llanachebran or St. Keveran, where there had been a 
house of secular canons till the Norman conquest; and 
Farringdon in Berkshire. This last-named was a manor 
which had been given by King John to Citeaux in 1203 
on condition that an abbey of the Order should be founded 
there; but the next year, 1204, on the establishment of 
Beaulieu in Hampshire, it was agreed that the donation 
should be transferred to this house, and a few monks of 

[44] 



BEAULIEU 

Beaulieu were established here under the ordinary condi- 
tions which regulated the government of the cells of any 
abbey. 

It is a well-known historical fact that many injustices 
were perpetrated in the dissolution of the smaller mon- 
asteries which had been granted to Cardinal Wolsey to 
make his foundations at Oxford and Ipswich. Amongst 
others, and unjustly, as it was a cell of a greater house, 
was St. Keveran's, Cornwall, which belonged to Beaulieu. 
The abbot at the time was Thomas Skeryngton, who was 
also bishop of Bangor, and he wrote to the Cardinal to 
protest against the high-handed proceedings of his agents. 
The property, he says, had given to the abbey by Richard 
Earl of Cornwall 400 years before, and it had now been 
suddenly seized and he who had taken it wrote to say that 
*' the benefice which is impropriated to Beaulieu he 
mindeth to give to the finding of scholars." This letter 
of remonstrance was successful, and Beaulieu kept St. 
Keveran's as part of its possessions till the dissolution. 

In the early part of March, 1536, John Browning, 
abbot of Beaulieu, died, and Thomas Stephens, then 
abbot of Netley, was elected his successor. This was no 
sooner done than Netley was suppressed, and all the Net- 
ley monks accompanied their abbot to Beaulieu. On 
April 2, 1538, Abbot Stephen and twenty monks signed 
their surrender of Beaulieu to the King. After this came 
the usual wrecking process. What precious plate and 
vestments these Cistercian monks possessed is unknown; 
all indication is lost in the process of collecting these 

[47] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

things for the King's use. One solitary example from 
Beaulieu is all that remains. Amongst the vestments and 
hangings, etc., which the official appointed to carry out 
the suppression considered worth sending up to Henry 
were " three altar f rontals." 

A few words may be said about the last abbot. In 
February, 1540, he was instituted to the rectory of Bent- 
worth, near Alton, vacant by the deprivation of John 
Palmes. It was not without considerable difficulty that 
" the abbot quondam of Beaulieu " was able to take pos- 
session of this benefice. In 1548 Thomas Stephens was 
collated to the treasurership of Salisbury Cathedral, and 
he died in 1550, holding both preferments. 



[48] 




BUCKFAST ABBEY 

'T. MARY'S ABBEY OF BUCKFAST is 

beautifully situated in Devonshire, high up on 
Dartmoor, a few hundred yards from the con- 
fluence of the Dart and the Holy Brook. The 
church measured some 250 feet, but the ravages of the 
time after the dissolution have left but little trace of the 
entire mass of buildings, with the exception of a barn and 
a tower. On the site of the old house quite recently a new 
monastery of Benedictine monks has risen up, and at the 
present time another church is being built upon the 
foundations of that which was swept away in the sixteenth 
century. 

Tradition, which would appear to be well founded, 
places the establishment of the abbey in the eighth cen- 
tury; and according to some there was here a Christian 
British settlement dedicated to St. Petrock at a very much 
earlier period. When the light of written records, how- 
ever, breaks in upon the story of the monastery, we are, 
indeed, in a very much later period, but with the abbey 
already in existence. 

Until comparatively recent times little was known of 
Buckf ast beyond a charter or two and a somewhat meagre 

[49] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

list of abbots. A few years ago, however, among a mass 
of waste paper and parchment bought by an Exeter mer- 
chant from various sources was a fragment of a parch- 
ment book, which proved to be part of the Cartulary of 
Buckfast Abbey. It is, indeed, only a fragment, but it 
gives much information as to the possessions of the abbey, 
the names of certain of the abbots not recorded elsewhere, 
the record of early benefactors and land-owners, and inci- 
dentally some brief details in the general history of the 
monastery. The document is to be found printed in the 
third volume of Bishop Grandisson's Register (p. 1563 
seqq.) and edited by Prebendary Hingeston-Randolph. 
The earliest written record, apparently, states that the 
monastery was in the possession of '' the monks of the 
order of Savigny," that is, of those who followed the rule 
of the house founded by Blessed Vitalis of Savigny in 
1 1 12, which house, the mother of many daughter monas- 
teries, became identified with the Cistercian movement. 
The Baron of Totnes Castle, a few miles away down the 
Dart from Buckfast, appears as one of the early bene- 
factors of that monastery. He came to the Chapter and, 
with his two sons, " assenting with entire hearts," he gave 
lands to the Norman monks from Savigny that they might 
sing daily the " Mary Mass" for the welfare of his own 
soul and for the soul of Alice his wife, of his ancestors and 
his posterity. He reserves to himself and his people a 
right of way to a ford over the Dart, when they should 
wish to go to market to Ashburton. " The ford," says a 
modern writer, " has long been disused, but the house 

[so] 



I 



BUCKFAST ABBEY 

above it on the Ashburton side, still bears the name of 
' Priestaf ord; " 

A charter of Henry II, witnessed by Archbishop Theo- 
bald and St. Thomas Becket, when Chancellor, and con- 
firming all the privileges and grants of land, etc., held 
by the monastery in the time of Henry I, his grandfather, 
is the next piece of the written history of Buckfast that 
has come down to us. Then about the year 1240 a certain 
Sir Robert de Hellion of Ashton, owning a mansion and 
lands called Hosefenne, about a mile and a half from the 
abbey, moved possibly by the austerity of life led by the 
Cistercian monks of Buckfast, resolved to give them some 
wine on the great festivals. For this purpose he be- 
stowed this manor of Hosefenne upon *' St. Mary of 
Buckfast, and the monks serving God there." In ac- 
knowledgment, the religious are to present him and his 
heirs forever with a pound of wax on the feast of the As- 
sumption. Out of the revenues of the manor the abbot 
was to provide his monks yearly with sixty-four gallons 
of wine, to be drunk on the festivals of Christmas, Candle- 
mas, Whit-Sunday and the Assumption; that is, sixteen 
gallons on each feast day. 

No doubt, had we more documentary history for Buck- 
fast, we should see that the life of the Cistercian monks 
in their seclusion in Dartmoor was one devoted to the 
service of God and of His poor in the neighbouring coun- 
try. The very absence of history may be taken almost as 
a proof of this. It is the difficulty, the quarrel, the 
scandal that finds its way into the public record, whilst 

[53] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

days and years of patient service and regular observance 
are obviously recorded only in the Book of Ages. 

The admission of Philip as abbot, on May 21, 1349, in 
the year of the great pestilence and at a time w^hen it was 
most rife in Devon, and when all round about the clergy 
were falling victims to the scourge, suggests that St. 
Mary's, Buckf ast, was not spared, and that Abbot William 
Gififord died of the mysterious and prevailing sickness. 
If so, we may be sure that he was not the only one of his 
house who was carried off by it; how many victims there 
were here we shall never know, but probably there were 
many. At the Cistercian house of Newenham in the same 
county, for instance, the Register records that " in the 
time of this mortality or pestilence there died in this house 
twenty monks and three lay brothers, and Walter the 
abbot and tvvo monks only were left alive there after the 
sickness." And over and besides these, " no fewer than 
eighty persons living within the gates " died there. 

The last abbot, Gabriel Dunne or Donne, was ap- 
pointed only a very short time before the suppression of 
the abbey and not improbably in view of the surrender. 
At any rate the act was ratified in the Chapter House on 
February 25, 1538, and Dunne received an annuity of 
£120 for his consent to the surrender. At the time the 
number of the monks was much reduced, and only nine 
appear upon the pension list. William Petre, one of the 
royal commissioners of the dissolution of the monasteries, 
received several manors of the suppressed monastery as 
his share of the plunder, and the site of the abbey itself 

[54] 




^^^^ 




4 . • « '^' 




BUCKFAST ABBEY 

became the property of Sir Thomas Dennys, a large sharer 
in the spoils of the religious houses. To prevent the bells 
of the abbey church being broken in pieces and sold for 
the price of the metal, the inhabitants of Buckfastleigh, by 
Sir Thomas Arundel, the King's official, paid £33 15s. for 
them. 



[571 



BURY ST. EDMUND'S 

^^^^^HE great Abbey of Bury arose on the spot to 
M C| which the relics of St. Edmund the King were 
^^^^^ brought for burial after his martyrdom by the 
Danes in 870. For some time the body lay in 
the old wooden chapel at Hoxne until its removal, some- 
where about 903, to the spot called at that time Beodrics- 
worth, but now known as St. Edmund's Bury. In 946 
Edmund, son of Edmund the Elder, granted lands to the 
*' keepers of the body," consisting of four priests and two 
deacons, who were, apparently, members of a body of 
secular clergy. This college of secular priests, as we may 
call it, was replaced about A. D. 1020 by Benedictine 
monks, brought from St. Bennet's, Hulme, and from Ely 
by King Canute. The chief promoter of this change 
was, apparently, iElfwin, Bishop of Elmham, who had 
formerly been a member of the Ely community. A 
monk named Uvius, who was prior of St. Bennet's, became 
the first abbot, and almost at once, by order of King 
Canute, the existing wooden church was pulled down and 
replaced by one of stone. This was dedicated by Agel- 
noth, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1032. 

The position for the new monastery was well chosen. 
What remains of the monastic buildings may now be seen 

[58] 



BURY ST. EDMUND'S 

on some low ground, protected by a hill covered by the 
houses of the town and bounded on the south by some 
rich meadow land, bordering the little river Linnet, 
which, flowing eastward, here joins the river Lark and 
continues its course together with it towards the Ouse and 
the North Sea. At the confluence of these two small 
rivers stands a bridge of the thirteenth century, with a 
curious arrangement for a wooden passage, which has its 
history. Along it, in the days gone by, the sick and in- 
firm were able to pass over the flowing stream in order to 
enjoy the shadow of the vines planted along the sunny 
river bank; to the east, on the rising ground, signs of the 
terraced vineyard are still clearly apparent. 

The actual remains of the church, once 505 feet in 
length, of the great cloisters, and of the vast monastic 
buildings are very scanty. Chief amongst the actual 
existing ruins is the tower, 86 feet high, formerly the great 
gate of the cemetery. It stands exactly opposite to the 
spot where the great western door of the church was, and 
it is still in good preservation. Of the rest some high 
masses of flint and mortar, from which the stone casing 
has been cut away, are all that remain of one of the finest 
establishments in the land. Somewhat further to the 
north is the church of St. James, built as a parochial 
church by the monks in the twelfth century, and further 
on again, there still stands the beautiful decorated gate- 
way built in the period from 1327-40. Within it the re- 
mains of the abbot's house are not inconsiderable, but of 
the extensive western front, with its great central tower 

[59] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

and its two lower octagonal towers, which in size and 
beauty must have rivalled the front of Ely, nothing what- 
ever is now left. When Leland saw this church in the 
day of its magnificence, with two noble parish churches 
as it were supporting it and, by contrast, showing off its 
immense proportions, and with its six smaller chapels 
standing within the precincts, he exclaimed: "The sun 
hath not shone on a goodlier abbey, whether a man indif- 
ferently consider either the endowment with revenues or 
the largeness or the incomparable magnificence thereof. 
He that saw it would say, verily, that it wis a city, so 
many gates are there in it, and some of brass, and so many 
towers and a most stately church, upon which attend three 
others also, standing gloriously in one and the same 
churchyard, all of passing fine and curious workman- 
ship." 

Such was the great abbey in the day of its magnificence : 
to this it was slowly and painfully built up during the five 
hundred years of its existence. The first abbot was suc- 
ceeded by Leofstan, another of the monks who had come 
as founders from Hulme, and it was during the time of 
his abbacy that Edward the Confessor visited the shrine 
of St. Edmund on more than one occasion. At these 
times, out of veneration for the saintly King and martyr, 
Edward was wont to perform the last mile of his journey 
on foot like an ordinary pilgrim. Upon the death of 
Leofstan the favour of the Confessor procured the elec- 
tion of Baldwin, a monk of St. Denis and his own physi- 
cian, and the convent had no reason to regret their com- 

[60] 



BURY ST. EDMUND'S 

pliance with the King's suggestion. Even after the 
Conquest this learned abbot continued in high favour 
with William. He was always well received at Court 
and the King kept him for long periods near his person 
as a friend and adviser. 

Towards the close of his life Abbot Baldwin saw that 
the church built by Canute was hardly adequate for the 
more modern requirements, when the abbey had already 
grown in size and importance. He determined, there- 
fore, to begin the building of a noble church, and so 
quickly did the work proceed that he completed w^hat 
was considered one of the most wonderful churches of its 
age in 1095. The same year the body of St. Edmund was 
translated to its new shrine with great pomp, on April 
29, in the presence of a vast concourse of people. Within 
a year Abbot Baldwin died and, as William Rufus then 
reigned over England, the monks were left for some time 
before they could obtain permission to elect a successor. 
Even when Henry I came to the throne, in 1 100, the royal 
will imposed upon the monks as abbot a son of the Earl 
of Chester, who had been a monk of Evrault, in Nor- 
mandy. It was really a bad case of the obvious abuse by 
which a religious superior could be placed over a com- 
munity by the secular power, and after two years this 
utterly unworthy and incapable man was deposed by St. 
Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury. A monk of West- 
minster was thereupon chosen by the religious, and though 
for five years the King refused to recognise him, this time 
of contention appears to have been both prosperous and 

[63] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

useful to the monastery. The abbot of their choice built 
the refectory, the dormitory, the chapter house and 
abbot's quarters, and in 1107, the royal opposition having 
apparently been overcome, he was blessed by St. Anselm. 
He, however, lived only for a year afterwards. 

During the last portion of the twelfth century Ed- 
mundsbury was ruled by the well-known abbot Samson, 
who was elected 1182. He is probably the best known 
of the whole line of abbots, through the charming chron- 
icle of Jocelin of Brakelond, which inspired Carlyle's 
Past and Present. The account of his presentation to thq 
King, as given by the annalist, is most picturesque. " Then 
Samson was nominated in the presence of the King," he 
says, " and when the King had consulted with his men for 
a while, all were summoned, and the King said, *You 
have presented to me Samson. I know him not. If you 
had presented your prior to me, I would have accepted 
him, for I have seen and known him. But I will only do 
what you will. Take heed to yourselves ; by the true eyes 
of God, if you do ill I will enact a recompense at your 
hands.' 

" Then he asked the prior if he assented to the choice 
and wished it, and the prior answered that he did will it 
and that Samson was worthy of much greater honour. 
Therefore he was elected, and fell at the King's feet and 
embraced them. Then he arose quickly and hastened to 
the altar, with his head erect and without changing his 
expression, chanting the Miserere mei, Deus with the 
brothers. 

[64] 



BURY ST. EDMUND'S 

" And when the King saw this, he said to those that 
stood by, * By the eyes of God, this elect thinks he is 
worthy to rule the abbey.' " 

^ Samson ruled for thirty years, in which, whilst dealing 
always justly, strictly and firmly but with every kindness, 
he won the admiration and affection of his monks. Car- 
lyle sketches him for us as " the substantial figure of a 
man with eminent nose, bushy brows and clear-flashing 
eyes, his russet beard growing daily greyer," and his hair, 
which before his elevation to the abbot's chair had been 
black, becoming daily more and more silvered with his 
many cares. Of cares he had plenty, because the finances 
of the house had fallen into very low water indeed, and 
there was apparently no means of extricating the abbey 
from the clutches of the money-lenders. But Samson set 
his heart and soul to the task; not prematurely attempt- 
ing anything at once, but studying the situation with 
care and patience, and then, when he had grasped what 
was to be known, determining upon the remedy. Whea 
he came to die in 121 1 he was followed to the grave by 
a sorrowing community whose unstinted reverence he 
had won. The unknown monk of the abbey, who was 
the author of another chronicle in continuation of Joce- 
lin's, thus records his death: "^On the 30th December, 
at St. Edmunds, died Samson, of pious memory, the 
venerable abbot of that place, after he had prosperously 
ruled the abbey committed to him for thirty years and 
had freed it from a load of debt, had enriched it with 
privileges, liberties, possessions and spacious buildings, 

[65] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

and had restored the worship of the church both inter- 
nally and externally, in the most ample manner. Then 
bidding his last farewell to his sons, by whom the blessed 
man deserved to be blessed for evermore, whilst they were 
all standing by and gazing with awe at a death which 
was a cause for admiration, not for regret, in the fourth 
year of the interdict he rested in peace." 

Samson was succeeded by Hugh de Northwold, who, 
in 1228, became bishop of Ely. The King had kept the 
abbatial property in his hands for a whole year before 
allowing the community to proceed to an election, and 
^ven when the leave came diiEculties arose about the 
" free choice " of the monks which caused further delays, 
and it was not until March 10, 1215, that the question 
Tvas decided in Hugh de Northwold's favour. Even then 
the difficulties were not at an end, and it was only on June 
9 that he was received by the King to do homage. By 
this time, however, he had already been blessed by Arch- 
bishop Langton on May 17. The Archbishop had 
thought that in view of the commotio, which had arisen 
between the King and the barons, it was necessary that the 
abbot of St. Edmundsbury should be blessed without de- 
lay, and so put himself in a position to act with other 
ecclesiastics with full abbatial power should events so 
demand. It was on May 17, after his benediction at 
Rochester, that the news came from London that the city 
had fallen into the hands of the barons; and when the 
King consented to receive the abbot on June 10, he did 
jso *' in Staine's Meadow," or Runnymead, where the dis- 

[66] 




i- , 



BP--R 




THE ABBOT S BRIDGE, BURY ST. EDMUNDS 



BURY ST. EDMUND'S 

cussions were already in progress between the King and 
his barons, which issued in the granting and proclamation 
of the Great Charter. Hugh de Northwold, the bishop, 
died in 1254; and the historian, Matthew of Paris, who 
must have known him well, calls him flos nigrorum mon- 
achorum, " the flower of the Black monks," and adds that 
as he had been known as an abbot among abbots, so also 
he shone brightly as a bishop among bishops. 

On the elevation of Hugh to the See of Ely in 1228, 
Richard de Insula or Ely was chosen in his place. He 
had been prior of Edmundsbury and for seven years had 
been abbot of Burton before he was chosen to succeed 
Hugh de Northwold. He celebrated his installation on 
St. Edmund's Day, in the presence of the Achbishop of 
Canterbury, the bishop of Ely and many other ecclesias- 
tics and peers. 

It is unnecessary to follow in detail the succession of 
the various abbots who ruled over the destinies of Bury 
during the succeeding centuries. In the thirteenth cen- 
tury great difficulty and not a few serious misunderstand- 
ings were experienced by the coming of the Franciscan 
friars to the town. They established themselves there 
not only without the leave but in spite of the opposition 
of the monks, and through the support of the Earl of 
Gloucester and the Queen they maintained themselves in 
the position of opposition they had taken up for nearly 
six years. Finally, under a rescript of Pope Urban IV in 
November, 1263, their removal to Babwell, a site granted 
to them by the monks, was effected. 

[69] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

During the reigns of Edward I and Edward II the 
affairs of the abbey would appear to have been sufficiently 
prosperous. It was then that the mansion for the recep- 
tion of royal guests was provided by the monks. It is, 
indeed, remarkable how frequent during the history of 
the monastery were the visit of royal personages, and it 
has been said that " no shrine ever drew so many noble 
pilgrims and crowned visitors." Besides those already 
mentioned, Henry I came, in 1132, to return thanks for 
his preservation during a great storm whilst at sea; 
Richard Cceur de Lion, in 11 89, was at Bury to ask for 
God's blessing on going to war against the Saracens; and 
again, in 1194, on his return to offer the rich standards 
of Isaac, King of Cyprus. In 1204 King John visited 
the abbey, hardly, perhaps, so much as a pilgrim as to ask 
for the loan of the jewels with which his mother. Queen 
Eleanor, had decked the shrine of the martyr-king. 
Henry III was twice at Bury as a pilgrim, in 1251 and 
1272; Edward I and his Queen came in 1289 and also in 
1292 and 1294; Edward II in 1326; Richard III in 1383; 
Henry VI in 1433, 1436, 1446 and 1448; Edward IV in 
1469; and Henry VII in i486. In 1272 and again in 
1296 a Parliament was held at the abbey, 
f In 1327 the then abbot, Thomas de Braughton, wit- 
nessed the almost total destruction of the abbey by the 
townspeople of Edmundsbury. Many matters concern- 
ing the rights of the monastery and the liberties of the 
people had long been in debate between the convent and 
the town, when suddenly, headed by the aldermen and 

[70] 



BURY ST. EDMUND'S 

burgesses, the people made repeated armed attacks upon 
the monastery and its possessions. They sacked and 
burned the monastic buildings and robbed the abbey of 
its ornaments, charters and treasures. They took the 
prior, Peter de Clopton, and some twenty monks to the 
chapter house and there forced them to sign documents 
subversive of the rights and privileges of the abbey, be- 
sides bonds promising to pay large sums of money to the 
insurgent tenants and to free them from debt. The 
people held the monastery by force for ten months, con- 
tinually burning and destroying, so that v^hen in the end 
the sheriff, with the King's soldiers, came to its relief it 
is said that the monks' common room was the only 
place left with a roof on it in which to stable the horses. 
After prolonged litigation, the convent was awarded 
£140,000 for damages, but, at the instance of the King, 
the whole was remitted except 2,000 marks, to be paid at 
the rate of 100 marks a year. One account states that 
those who had been outlawed plotted a revenge. Wait- 
ing their time, they seized the abbot at his manor at Char- 
ington and, having bound him, shaved his head and beard 
and carried him away with them to London. Here they 
kept their prisoner in secret, removing him from house to 
house, till they got a chance to convey him over the 
Thames into Kent and thence later over the sea into 
Brabant, where they held him captive, " in much misery 
and slavery," till he was rescued by his friends. 

The celebration of the Christmas of 1433 by King 
Henry VI at St. Edmundsbury affords us, in the details 

[70 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

that have come down to us, a good picture of the greatness 
and resources of the abbey at this period of its existence. 
On All Saints' Day, 1433, the King had publicly an- 
nounced his intention of spending the time from Christ- 
mas to St. George's Day at the abbey. Preparations were 
immediately begun by the monks, and the royal lodgings 
or " palace," as the record calls it, having been found in 
an indifferent state of repair, eighty workmen were at 
once engaged to set it in order and decorate it. 

From among his own numerous dependents Abbot 
Curteys found no difficulty in appointing a sufficient suite 
to wait upon the King, and he arranged, says the record, 
for a hundred officers of every rank to attend on Henry 
during his stay. He summoned the aldermen and the 
chief people of Bury to discuss how and in what dress it 
was proper to receive their King, and after much talk it 
was concluded that the aldermen and burgesses should 
wear their scarlet gowns and the rest be content with red 
cloth and hoods of blood colour. On Christmas Eve, 
consequently, the aldermen, burgesses and townsfolk, to 
the number of five hundred, in their gorgeous robes, set 
out on horseback to meet King Henry at Newmarket 
Heath and bring him into Bury. 

It is no very difficult task to picture to the imagination 
the vast court of the abbey on that occasion, crowded with 
the inhabitants of the town and the people from the 
neighbouring villages, all eager to get a glimpse of their 
sovereign. As rumours heralded the approach of the gay 
cavalcade, the great western doors of the abbey church — 

[72] 



BURY ST. EDMUND'S 

works of beaten bronze, cunningly chiselled by the skil- 
ful hands of Master Hugh, and inspired perchance by 
what Abbot Anselm, nephew of the sainted archbishop^ 
had himself seen at Monte Cassino — were thrown open. 
Forth issued the community, some sixty or seventy in 
number, all vested in precious copes over their habits^ 
and following the cross and candles and preceding their 
abbot in full pontificals, with whom on this occasion 
walked Bishop Alnwick of Norwich, an honoured guest. 
Then the ranks of vested monks opened on either side and 
through them bishop and abbot advanced to meet their 
youthful sovereign, whereupon the Earl of Warwick, 
quickly alighting, assisted the King to dismount. Henry 
at once advanced towards the procession and kneeling 
upon a silken cloth was first sprinkled with holy water by 
the abbot, and was then presented with the crucifix to be 
reverently kissed by him. 

The procession then turned to re-enter the church. 
The building was large enough to accommodate even so 
large a crowd as was that day assembled. From end to end 
the western front stretched for nearly 250 feet; within, an 
unbroken length of over 500 feet met the eye. The mas- 
sive Norman architecture of A. D. 11 12 was relieved by 
the painted vaulting — that of the choir by the monk 
" Dom John Wodecroft, the King's painter," in the days 
of Abbot John I de Norwold (1279-1301), that of the 
nave to match, executed in the taste of the fourteenth cen- 
tury at the expense of the sacrist, John Lavenham (c. 
1370), who during his term of office had spent something 

[73] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

like £50,000 of our money on beautifying the church. 
The new lantern tower above the choir was his work, and 
so too were the clerestory windows round the sanctuary: 
the painted glass in the windows in the southern side of 
the minster were the gift of King Edward III to the 
church of St. Edmund. 

After visiting the Blessed Sacrament at the High Altar, 
the King passed out of the sight of the people by one of the 
doors in the altar screen, which had been adorned with 
paintings by the care of Bishop Bromfield. These door- 
ways led into the feretory beyond the screen, in which 
was the shrine of the sainted King and martyr. This 
priceless work of art rested on a base of Gothic stonework, 
and was itself covered with plates of gold enriched with 
every kind of jewel. King John every year of his reign 
bestowed ten marks on the work of beautifying the shrine, 
and among the stones which sparkled on it were a great 
and precious sapphire and a ruby of great size, two of his 
special gifts. On the right side, too, was the golden cross 
set with many jewels surmounting a flaming carbuncle, 
the rich gift of Henry Lacy, the last Earl of Lincoln of 
that name, whilst a second golden cross from the same 
benefactor formed the apex of the shrine. 

On the east, at the head of the shrine, two small 
columns supported a smaller shrine containing the relics 
of Leostan, the second abbot of Bury, whilst on the west- 
ern side at the foot of the shrine was placed the altar of 
the Holy Cross. Above the whole stretched a canopy, 
which Prior Lavenham had adorned with painted pic- 

[74] 



BURY ST. EDMUND'S 

tures. At the four corners were the great waxen torches 
which burned before the shrine day and night, and were 
paid for by the rent of a Norfolk manor, left for the pur- 
pose by King Richard II. 

It is impossible within limits to follow in detail the 
story of Henry's Christmas visit to Edmundsbury. It 
will, perhaps, be possible, however, to say something 
about the treasures which must have existed at this time 
in the abbey vestry and which have, alas! now all disap- 
peared. Unfortunately we have no inventory of St. Ed- 
mundsbury, but a slight anecdote makes us understand 
what it must have been. In Abbot Samson's time a 
monk called Walter de Diss was appointed to the respon- 
sible office of sacrist. After four days' experience in the 
office he came and asked to be relieved, saying that since 
his appointment he had never closed his eyes and could 
neither rest nor sleep. 

Doubtless, like St. Albans, Glastonbury and elsewhere. 
Bury possessed large sets of vestments, including ten, 
thirty or even sixty copes. The fragmentary notices 
which remain afford at all events some idea of that of 
which all exact record is lost. For example, here is a 
cope ^^ woven with gold " and a precious chasuble given 
by Abbot Samson himself; here is a chasuble adorned 
with gold and precious stones and a cope of the same 
given by Abbot Hugh de Northwold, afterwards bishop 
of Ely. Then, in one press are kept the precious copes, 
the silken hangings and other ornaments provided by 
Abbot Richard I (1229- 1234) 5 then in another are the 

[75] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

set of fifty copes and other things thereto belonging (that 
iSj5 doubtless, albs, apparels, etc.), which Prior John Gos- 
ford had done so much to acquire. Then, to name only 
one or two more instances, there were the vestments ob- 
tained at a cost of over £200 by John Lavenham ; the vest- 
ment hloden cum botherflies de satyn given to St. Edmund 
by Edmund Bokenham, chaplain to King Edward III; 
the embroidered cope of Prior William de Rokeland; the 
precious cope bought for over £40 by Prior Edmund de 
Brundish; the sumptuous embroidered cope given by 
Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln. 

Of the plate, the most precious piece was doubtless 
the great chalice of gold, weighing nearly fourteen marks, 
the gift of Eleanor, Queen of Henry 11. It was a chalice 
with a history, for it had been given by the community as 
its contribution towards the ransom of King Richard I. 
Queen Eleanor, the King's mother, however, paid its 
value and subsequently restored it to Edmundsbury on 
condition that it should never again be alienated, as she 
says in her charter, and that it was to be preserved for- 
ever, a memorial of her son Richard. Besides this there 
was another chalice of fine gold procured by the sacrist 
Hugh; a cross of gold given by the Abbot Samson; a 
third golden cross, another present of Henry Lacy, and 
set with precious stones to render it more worthy as a 
reliquary for a piece of the Holy Cross. The same gen- 
erous benefactor gave a cup which was much prized at 
Bury. It was a bowl of silver gilt, of the most wonderful 
and ancient workmanship, which the donor asserted had 

[76] 



BURY ST. EDMUND'S 

belonged to St. Edmund himself. This cup, on great 
days, the chaplain of the shrine, wearing a surplice, was 
wont to offer to the most dignified guests keeping the 
holiday in the abbey. 

^Abbot Curteys, who entertained the youthful King 
Henry at this Christmas of 1432, was himself the giver 
of a great work of art, a pastoral staff, which from what 
we know of it, must have done honour to the English 
workraan who made it. It was ordered by Abbot Curteys 
in 1430, and John Horwell, the goldsmith of London 
who made it, pledged himself to have it ready for All 
Saints' Day of the same year. In the crook were figured 
two scenes, on the one side the Assumption of the Blessed 
Virgin, on the other the Annunciation; below the spring- 
ing of the curve was a richly ornamented niche enshrin- 
ing the figure of St. Edmund, whilst below this again 
and forming the summit of the staff were twelve canopies 
each containing one of the Apostles. The weight of this 
precious pastoral crook was lalbs. 9iozs., and it cost the 
abbot £40 in money of those days. 

A mere glance at the treasury of any single abbey may 
afford some idea of the devastation which took place in 
the sixteenth century. Of the wonderful works of art 
gathered together at Edmundsbury during centuries of 
corporate existence nothing whatever is known to exist; 
the destruction was complete. No wonder the commis- 
sioners of Henry VIII could write of Bury: "We have 
found a rich shryne which was very cumbrous to deface," 
and that although they had " taken in the said monastery 

[77] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

in gold and silver 5,000 marks and above, over and be- 
sides a rich cross with emeralds, as also divers and sundry 
stones of great value, they had left the house well fur- 
nished" for a further spoliation. No wonder that Cam- 
den in his lamenting over the ruin of this great house 
could write: *^ Greater loss than this, so far as the works 
of man go, England never suffered." 

\The visitation of Edmundsbury in 1535 by ApRice, 
Crumweirs agent, is a very good example of the kind 
of work these men did. ApRice's letter states that they 
could find out nothing from the religious, " although we 
did use much diligence," and he therefore concludes 
*^ that they had confederated and compacted before our 
coming that they should disclose nothing." Neverthe- 
less, in the paper of charges sent with the letter the royal 
commissioners do not hesitate to bracket nine of the 
monks together as guilty of immoralities, and to suggest 
the same against the abbot. Edmundsbury, however, 
was, of course, one of the greater abbeys, which subse- 
quently to this report the King declared in Parliament to 
be in a good and religious state. The end came on Nov- 
ember 4, 1539, when, after vainly striving to stave off the 
destruction of his house. Abbot Melford was compelled 
to resign his charge into the King's hands. He received 
a pension and retired into a small house at the top of 
Crown Street, Bury, where he shortly afterwards died, 
of grief, it is said, at the calamity which had overwhelmed 
his house and Order. 

[78] 



CROWLAND 

G ROWLAND, or Croyland, is described by 
William of Malmesbury as one of the islands 
in the great tract of fen or marshland a hun- 
dred miles in length, which stretches from the 
middle of England to the eastern sea. The ruins of the 
abbey stand about half-way between Peterborough and 
Spalding, on the banks of the river Welland, which drains 
off much of the water of this district into the Wash, fifty 
miles away. In this spot early in the eighth century there 
settled a youth of high family, named Guthlac, who, hav- 
ing renounced the profession of arms, desired to live a 
secluded life amid the solitude of the Lincolnshire fens. 
Shortly after his death, Ethelwold, King of the Mercians, 
determined to fulfil here his promise to build a monastery, 
and in 716 he sent for Kenulph, a monk of Evesham, to 
begin the foundation. 

This was the commencement of Benedictine Crow- 
land, and, if we can believe Ethelbald's charter as given 
in Ingulph's Chronicle, the King gave £300 towards the 
buildings of the abbey and promised £100 a year more 
for ten years to come. He had granted the monks the 
entire island; but as it was small and the land very inse- 

[79] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

cure, he caused an innumerable quantity of oaks and 
alders to be driven into the marshy ground round about 
the island as piles, and in order to fill up the ground he 
had earth brought from Upland, nine miles away. In 
this way the ground was made sufficiently solid to support 
the stone buildings, which at once began to arise in the 
fenland. 

In 870 the Danes ravaged the whole country, and hav- 
ing defeated Earl Algar's army pursued the survivors to 
the very door of the monastery at Crowland. The com- 
munity hastily retired, carrying off in a box the body of 
their patron St. Guthlac with his psalter and whip, which 
is called elsewhere St. Bartholomew's whip and is repre- 
sented on the arms of the abbey, and hid them in Ancarig 
Wood, where there was a hermitage. The plate and 
altarpiece were then let down into the well of the cloister; 
but the latter, which was much prized as being the gift 
of King Witlaf fifty years before, and which possibly 
may have been ^' the golden veil embroidered with the 
fall of Troy," specially spoken of, would not sink, and was 
handed over to the charge of the abbot and some seniors. 
Thirty monks remained behind in the monastery and con- 
tinued to carry out their duties as before, until just as 
Mass was over the Danes broke into the church where 
they were. Oskitel, the Danish king, murdered the abbot 
with his own hands, and the rest of the monks were tor- 
tured to make them reveal the place where the church 
treasure was hidden, and as they refused they were put 
to death in various places of the establishment. Asker, 

[80] 



CROWLAND 

the prior, for instance, was slaughtered in the sacristy; 
Lethwyn, the sub-prior, in the refectory, and one only of 
their number, Turgar, a boy of ten years, was spared. All 
the tombs were broken open in the hope of discovering 
the buried treasures, which, however, were not found. 
Being disappointed of their object, the barbarians laid the 
bodies of the murdered monks in a heap and setting fire 
to them burnt as their funeral pyre the church and mo- 
nastic buildings on August 28, 870, three days after their 
arrival at Crowland. 

After leaving the abbey the Danes set fire to Mede- 
shamsted Abbey, now known as Peterborough. In the 
confusion caused by an accident to some heavily laden 
wagons the boy Turgar escaped, and returning to Crow- 
land found that the monks who had gone to Ancarig had 
come back and were vainly endeavouring to extinguish 
the fire which was slowly consuming their monastery. 
Their first business, on learning of the death of their abbot 
and prior, was to choose a new superior, and one of their 
number, Godric, was unanimously elected to the office of 
abbot. He was almost at once called upon to assist in 
removing the ruins of Medeshamsted, and when doing so 
he erected a pyramidical cross over the bodies of eighty- 
four monks, who had perished in that monastery at the 
hands of the Danes. 

As most of this history and indeed most of the story 
of Crowland depends upon the Chronicle of Ingulph, 
now admitted to be a composition of the fifteenth cen- 
tury, it must, of course, be received with some caution, 

[83] 






THE GREATER ABBEYS 

although it no doubt gives the traditional account of the 
destruction of the abbey and its gradual restoration in 
the time before the Norman conquest. In 1076 the Con- 
queror made Ingulph abbot of his monastery at Crow- 
land, and at the time he took possession of his charge he 
found sixty-two monks, of whom four were lay brothers. 
Besides this there are said to have been actually in resi- 
dence there more than a hundred monks of other monas- 
teries, who were called comprofessi, who came and went 
apparently as they liked. When there they had a seat 
in the refectory, a stall in the church, and a bed in the 
common dormitory. These monks, belonging to various 
destroyed monasteries, apparently made Crowland a 
place of refuge in difficult days. At this time — ^A. D. 1076 
— of the comprofessi in the house, ten were from Thorney, 
six from Peterborough, eight from Ramsey, nine from St. 
Edmundsbury, ten from Westminster, fifteen from Thet- 
ford, fourteen from Christ Church, Norwich, etc. 

In 109 1 a fire, of which Ingulph gives a vivid account, 
broke out and destroyed most of the church and monas- 
tery. It was caused by the negligence of the proverbial 
plumber, who had left the ashes of his fire to smoulder 
after doing some lead work on the tower. To repair this 
great misfortune the friends and patrons of the abbey 
came forward with such generosity that Ingulph, before 
his death in 1109, was enabled to see much of the mon- 
astery restored and preparations made for rebuilding the 
church, over the blackened ruins of which a temporary 
roof had been placed. In 1 1 14 the first stone of the new 

[84] 



CROWLAND 

church was laid at the east angle, and various people of 
rank laid other stones, placing money upon them or grants 
of stone or wood. The foundations were laid upon mas- 
sive piles of oak, and many labourers came forward to 
assist in the work of raising a worthy temple to God, 
without other reward than that of the satisfaction of tak- 
ing part in the great work. Five thousand people were 
present at the feast of the dedication; this assembly in- 
cluded two abbots, two earls, two barons and 500 guests in 
the great halls. The rest were entertained in the cloister 
garth. 

During the wars between the houses of Lancaster and 
York Henry VI came to Crowland in 1460 and remained 
there for three days. Some time after, on an alarm that 
the northern army was marching upon that part of the 
country, the cloisters and buildings generally were filled 
to overflowing with household goods of all kinds brought 
in from the country round about. In 1467 Edward IV 
also visited Crowland and together with 200 horsemem 
was entertained by the abbot. 

The Perpendicular northwest tower was built in the 
fifteenth century in the- ten years between 1460-70. The 
beautiful early English sculpture of the legend of St. 
Guthlac on the west front was substituted by Abbot Ralph 
de la March (i 255-1 281) for a portion which had been 
blown down by a great storm; the upper part, which had 
seven tiers of canopied images, and the great west win- 
dow were finished in 1380. In January, 1470, Abbot 
Litlington gave five bells to the tower, which was begun 

[87] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

in 1427. The nave clerestory, built without any trifor- 
ium in 1405, must have been imposing; it is now a ruin. 
The monastery buildings lay to the south of the present 
remains ; on the west of the abbey court were the granaries 
and bakehouse built by John de Wisbech about 1470; on 
the south stood the lesser guest house; on the east the 
tailor's and other shops and offices and the hall of the lay 
brothers; on the north was the main gateway and the 
almonry. The infirmary was apparently southeast of the 
church and " the great guest hall on the west of the 
■cloister has an undercroft of three alleys." 

Crowland, like most of " the great and solemn abbeys " 
of England, came into the hands of Henry VHI in 1539. 
The site of the monastery soon passed away out of the 
King's hands; and the ruin of the buildings would have 
been even more complete than it now appears, had not the 
inhabitants purchased " the south aisle of the church " 
for £26, and at the same time given £30 for two of the old 
bells, to save them from being broken up by the royal 
workmen. 

\The last abbot was John Briggs or Bridges, and a 
subsequent examination of one of the dispossessed monks, 
who " was his confessor and one of his executors," shows 
us the old man dying away from his ancient home, and 
pestered with questions about some plate which he had 
been allowed to keep and which was in " a spruce coffer 
by his bedside," when he was breathing his last a few 
years after the ruin of his old home. He was the end of 
the long line of abbots of Crowland. 

[88] 



EVESHAM 

^^^i^HE Benedictine abbey of Evesham was in 
M ^^1 ancient days the glory of the fruitful valley in 
^^^^^ which it stood. Leland calls the place the 
horreum, the granary of Worcestershire, and a 
modern writer, who had seen the country in spring, white 
with the apple and cherry blossom and in the autumn 
golden with the hop flower, spoke of it as " an Eden of 
fertility." Here, at a spot where the Avon, making a 
sudden sweep round, describes more than two parts of a 
circle, on the peninsula thus formed, stands to-day the 
town of Evesham, which owes its existence to the abbey 
founded in the year 701 for monks of the Benedictine 
Order. 

Although there remain but few traces of the original 
buildings, in the height of its glory Evesham with its 
towers and turrets, with its church 270 feet long and its 
numerous chapels, with its cloisters and gables, was one 
of the largest churches and must have been one of the 
finest monastic establishments in the country. The Nor- 
man gateway of the precincts, part of Abbot Reginald's 
enclosure wall, a portion of the old almonry with its stone 
lantern, above all the Great Tower, built or finished by 

[89] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

Clement Lichfield in the sixteenth century, and the arch 
of the Chapter House, built in 13 17, are all that have 
been preserved of the vast range of buildings. The rest 
was pulled to the ground and swept away at the dissolu- 
tion so entirely and so immediately, that even in 1540, 
two years only after the event, Leland could describe it as 
*' gone, a mere heap of rubbish." The beautiful tower, 
1 17 feet high, was only saved from this same dire destruc- 
tion by the people of the town, who purchased it from the 
wreckers. 

The story or legend of Evesham goes back a long way. 
About the year 701, St. Egwin, the third bishop of the 
See of Worcester, founded the monastery and dedicated it 
to the Blessed Virgin Mary in response to a vision which 
he had, and in which Our Lady is said to have instructed 
him where to place the new foundation. With the name 
of the founder, Egwin, there is connected a somewhat 
strange legend, which has no doubt grown in the telling 
from some fact which at first was easily to be explained. 
The saint was twice in Rome, and in the spirit of penance 
so common in those far-off days, on one of his journeys, 
he is said to have locked fetters on his legs and to have 
thrown the key into the Worcestershire Avon. This may, 
of course, have been the case, but the story certainly tests 
the credulity of modern days when it goes on to say that 
inside a fish caught in the Tiber was found the same key 
by which the fetters were removed from Bishop Egwin's 
legs in Rome. 

The second visit Egwin paid to Rome was in company 

[90] 



EVESHAM 

with King Kenred and King Offa, who had already 
proved themselves great benefactors to Evesham. This 
was in 708, and it will be remembered that the two mon- 
archs whilst in Rome renounced their crowns and took 
the monastic habit in the Eternal City. St. Egwin on his 
return, following their example, gave up his See of Wor- 
cester and became first abbot of the new monastery of 
Evesham. A succession of eighteen Saxon abbots fol- 
lowed, of whom little more is known than their names, 
and in the uncertain times of the tenth century the regular 
life seems to have ceased, and the monks appear to have 
given place to secular priests living a sort of common life 
together. Whether this was the case or no is difficult 
to determine in the absence of records, but in 960 St. 
Ethelwold certainly appears to have restored the monks 
by command of King Edgar. 

The last abbot of the Saxon line was Egilwin, or 
Agelwy as he is sometimes called, who succeeded to the 
abbacy on the resignation of Abbot Maunus through ill- 
health in 1058. Egilwin won for himself the friendship 
and respect of William the Conqueror, and ruled the 
abbey until 1077, dying before he was able to carry out 
his desire of rebuilding the church at Evesham, which 
then stood in great need of repair. It was in 1074, dur- 
ing his abbacy, that Aldwin of Winchelcombe, together 
with Alfwy, a deacon of Evesham, and a brother named 
Reinfrid, set out from Worcestershire to restore some of 
the monasteries of Northumbria which had been rendered 
desolate by the Danes. The story may be seen in Simeon 

[93] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

of Durham's History, and it there appears that these 
three monks took with them from Evesham only the nec- 
essary books and vestments for Office and Mass, v^hich 
formed the burden of one ass. The result v^as all that 
could be wished for, and their mission led to the revival 
of the monasteries of Wearmouth and J arrow, of Whitby 
and of Lastingham, from which last named sprung St. 
Mary's Abbey at York. The connection of Evesham 
with this great Benedictine house in the north was per- 
petuated by the special union, which ever existed between 
them, and which, in the words of the annalist, made Eves- 
ham and St. Mary's to be " as one body and one church." 

In 1077 William the Conqueror appointed the first 
Norman abbot, who at once commenced the building of 
the church towards which his Saxon predecessor had left 
behind him " five chests full of money." This treasure 
not proving sufficient. Abbot Walter is said to have de- 
spatched some of his monks round about England on a 
collecting tour, with the shrine of St. Egwin. This jour- 
ney produced a considerable sum and enabled him to 
finish the work. 

Abbot Walter was succeeded, in the reign of William 
Rufus, by Robert, a monk of Jumieges in Normandy, 
and during the time of his rule, about 1 100, an offshoot of 
twelve monks was sent over to Denmark to found a Bene- 
dictine monastery there. This was undertaken at the re- 
quest of the King, Eric the Good, and of a bishop named 
Hubald, who was himself an Englishman and a Bene- 
dictine. Twelve monks departed from Evesham in 

[94] 



EVESHAM 

response to this demand and were established at Odcnsee, 
which always recognised its dependence on the parent 
house in England and to the end continued to preserve 
constant intercourse with it. 

\An interesting document of about this same period, 
preserved in the Register of the abbey, affords us some 
information as to the number of monks at Evesham and 
about the officials employed in the administration. 
There were then sixty-seven monks belonging to the 
abbey, including the twelve in Denmark, five nuns, three 
poor people " for the maundy,'' and three clerics having 
the same position as the monks. The number of the serv- 
ants of the abbey was sixty-five, of whom five served in the 
church, two in the infirmary, two in the chancery, five ia 
the kitchen, seven in the bakehouse, four in the brewery; 
four attended the baths, two were shoemakers, two were 
in the pantry, three were gardeners ; one attended at the 
gate of the close, two at the great gate; five worked in the 
vineyard, four were fishermen, four waited in the abbot's 
chamber, three waited in the hall, four attended on the 
monks when they went abroad, and two were watchmen. 

The twelfth and thirteenth centuries at Evesham were 
periods of building and reconstruction. With the except 
tion of one abbot, Roger Norreis, a Canterbury monk,, 
who had been forced upon the religious by the King, and 
who proving himself worthy of their suspicions had to be 
deposed by the Pope, most of the abbots were members 
of their own house and ruled well, ever adding something 
to the glories of Evesham. Of all the rest perhaps the 

[95] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

name of Thomas de Marleberge, who held the office 
from 1229 to 1236, deserves to be best remembered, not 
only as a builder of the walls of both church and monas- 
tery, but as a decorator of the existing buildings, and as a 
great collector of books for the monastic library. 

The end came to Evesham in the sixteenth century as 
to the rest of the religious houses. A chance survival 
of the Latin Letter Book of a monk of the monastery, 
who was also a master in the Benedictine college of Ox- 
ford, shows that studies were in no wise neglected at Eves- 
ham at the close of the long centuries of its history. The 
abbot Clement Lichfield, who was elected in 15 13, after 
disbursing large sums to Henry VIII, to Wolsey and to 
Crumwell, in the hope of propitiating them, resigned 
his office in 1538 rather than surrender his abbey to the 
King. He had built the ornate tower which still survives 
as his monument, and had added two chapels of consider- 
able beauty to the churches of St. Lawrence and of All 
Saints in the town. He was succeeded by Philip Haw- 
ford or Ballard, who was appointed in order that he 
might surrender his abbey and its possessions into the 
King's hands; and consequently on November 17, 1539, 
he and his community gave over their property in a deed 
of surrender to the royal officials. Amongst the names 
of those who are enrolled as members of the community 
in that document is that of John Feckenham. This monk 
subsequently became abbot of Westminster, when that 
foundation was restored in Queen Mary's reign, and 
amongst those to whom he gave the Benedictine habit 

[96] 



EVESHAM 

during the brief period of the renewed religious life at 
Westminster was one Sigebert Buckley. Half a century 
later, whilst a prisoner for his religious convictions in the 
London prison of the Gatehouse, Buckley clothed two 
priests with the habit, and thence it is through Evesham 
that the present English Benedictines claim an unbroken 
line of succession from those who came to England with 
St. Augustine. 

Two years after the suppression of the monastery, 
Clement Throgmorton, the royal receiver, sets down the 
total receipts from the property at Evesham at £1,521 
IS. lod with £70 arrears. He had paid the pensions of 
the abbot, the quondam abbot and thirty-two monks as 
well as an annuity to " the instructor of the boys," w^hich 
was £10. At various times £400 had been paid to the 
Crown from the receipts of the Evesham dissolved mon- 
astery. 



[97] 



FURNESS ABBEY 

ON the peninsula which stretches out into the 
sands and seas of Morecombe Bay in Lanca- 
shire stands what remains of Furness Abbey. 
Only a few miles away on the sea coast, so 
close, indeed, that the bustle and noise of its ever-clamor- 
ous iron foundries can almost be heard in the silent ruins, 
is Barrow. The contrast between the two places is ob- 
vious and complete: the one is a memorial of a bygone 
age ; of the dead past of a life of seclusion ; of calm study, 
and, above all, of prayer. It is a record of an intense 
belief in the unseen world, and in the intimate connection 
of the future life with the present, the supernatural with 
the natural. The other, Barrow, is the type of modern 
enterprise, modern ways, and even of modern beliefs ; in 
place of quiet and repose there is noise and bustle, and 
little time or place for supernatural ideals amid the per- 
petual present reality of work, work, work, where men 
are ever being ground to lifeless and soulless masses of 
humanity in the great money-making machines of the vast 
iron industry. 

The monastery of Furness was first founded in 1124 
by King Stephen before he had come to the Throne of 

[98] 



FURNESS ABBEY 

England. The monks were Benedictines from Savigny 
in France, and they were first located at a place called 
Tulketh, near Preston. They moved, however, in 1127 
to Furness, which was then called Benkangsgill, or " the 
valley of the deadly nightshade." A poem written by 
one of the monks in a later age connects the place name 
with a legend telling how the coming of the monks ren- 
dered the poison of the plants harmless. 

In the time of Peter of York, the fourth abbot of Fur- 
ness, Serlo, the abbot of Savigny, which was the mother 
house of Furness, joined the Cistercian movement, and 
submitted himself in all things to St. Bernard. Abbot 
Peter of York and his English community were at first 
unwilling to change their habit, which up to this had 
been that of the Black Benedictines, and he personally 
journeyed to Rome and obtained from Pope Eugenius 
III a declaration that the Abbey of Furness should 
always remain in the Order in which it was established, 
notwithstanding that the mother house had joined the 
Cistercians. 

Matters were so far apparently settled when Abbot 
Peter was persuaded — captus (taken) is the word of the 
chronicle — by the monks of Savigny to pay a visit to that 
house on his way back to his monastery. When they had 
got him at Savigny, he was induced to resign his abbatial 
office and become a monk to receive training in the Cis- 
tercian system. He succeeded so well that later on he 
was appointed abbot of the Cistercian house of Quarre, 
in the Isle of Wight* Meanwhile, Richard, a learned 

• [99] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

doctor and a monk of Savigny, was sent over to Furness 
as abbot. In a very short time, by his teaching and 
example, this Abbot Richard had won over the com- 
munity to the new union; they again acknowledged the 
abbey of Savigny as their mother house, and in a brief 
time had become part of the Cistercian Order. 

Furness gradually became possessed of great landed 
property. Besides the large peninsula on which it was 
situated, and which it owned practically in its entirety, it 
had lands and possessions in numerous counties of Eng- 
land. It is said, indeed, that in the reign of Edward I its 
revenue was estimated at £18,000 of our money. The 
enclosure wall of the monastery surrounded sixty-three 
acres, and there are many remains of the old buildings 
to prove their extent. The present hotel is said to have 
been the abbot's lodging. Of the church, the arch, 60 
feet in height, on the east of the crossing, remains; the 
late Perpendicular tower at the west end is 17 feet square, 
and was built within the late Norman nave, which has 
aisles and is 160 feet long and 65 feet broad. The tran- 
septs are 129 feet across, and have eastern chapels. The 
choir extends two bays into the nave, and the sanctuary 
still retains the platform of the altar, a sedilia of five 
canopies, and aumbries. In the wall of the south tran- 
sept may yet be seen the dormitory stairs used by the 
monks when coming to the night office. The domestic 
buildings are of a date early in the thirteenth century. 
On the west side of the cloister was a vaulted crypt of the 
guest house ; on the east is the Chaptet House 60 feet in 

[100] •■ 



FURNESS ABBEY 

length, and the parlour and cloister aumbry. On either 
side of the Chapter House, entered by two doorways, is 
the common room, with a fireplace in it. It is 50 feet 
long, and is of fourteen bays, having the dormitory 
above it. 

Furness apparently went on in the even tenor of its 
ways, without making history in the usual sense of the 
word, from the time of its foundation till the sixteenth 
century. It had at all times, apparently, a large com- 
munity, and beyond the thirty choir monks, which was 
the number constantly maintained, it sent out several 
colonies to make new foundations. Thus Calder Abbey 
was its first daughter-house in 1134, in which same year 
it established Rushin Abbey in the Isle of Man. Fifty 
years later it colonised Swineshead, but after this time 
these offshoots were discouraged by the Cistercian Gen- 
eral Chapter. Besides the English offshoots, moreover, 
there were several Irish foundations, which had intimate 
relations with Furness, and even claimed to have had 
their beginnings from it. From early times it would also 
appear that the bishops of the Isle of Man were wont to 
be chosen by the advice of the abbot of Furness and fre- 
quently from his community. The connection between 
the Isle of Man and Furness was always close, and in 
some indefinite way the abbot appears to have enjoyed a 
kind of jurisdiction over it. Rushin Abbey, the daugh- 
ter-house of Furness in the island, enjoyed the distinction 
of remaining undisturbed in the sixteenth century for 
some considerable time after the rest of the monasteries 

[ 103] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

in the three kingdoms had been dissolved. In Ireland 
several Cistercian houses w^ere either cells of Furness or 
looked on it as their mother house; for instance, Fermoy 
or De Costro Dei; Ynes or De insula, in county Down; 
Holy Cross, in the diocese of Cashell, and one or two 
more. 

The extent of the possessions of the abbey entailed 
obligations, and required that the monks should furnish 
a number of soldiers to the King in any need. The num- 
ber is put at 1,200 men, of whom a third were horsemen. 
At the battle of Flodden Sir Edward Stanley commanded 
such a contingent of " Furness men." Even during the 
time that the abbey existed the iron ore of the neighbour- 
hood was worked, although probably not with any great 
vigour. Still there are records showing that for the pur- 
pose of smelting the ore the monks had erected two fur- 
naces on Walney Island, which stretches out at the foot 
of the peninsula opposite the modern Barrow-in-Furness. 
The monks also were possessed of ships for the purpose of 
trading with foreign countries, and no doubt the iron ore 
or smelted iron was their chief trading commodity. 

The destruction of Furness, as one of the larger abbeys, 
came at a somewhat earlier date than many in a similar 
position and of equal importance. The fact that it was 
able, even in a slight degree, to be connected with the Pil- 
grimage of Grace gave the royal officials a means of 
exerting pressure upon the community of which they 
were not slow to avail themselves. Roger Pyle was at 
that time the abbot, and he and some of his community, 

[104] 



FURNESS ABBEY 

" with the tenants and servants, were successfully 
examined in private " by the royal agents as to their trans- 
actions with the northern insurgents. The result was 
summed up in a bill of accusations against some members 
of the abbey. The abbot at the time of the visitation 
had caused his monks to be forsworn. The monks of 
Sawley, on the suppression of that monastery, had been 
sent back to Furness as their mother house, and directly 
the rebellion had broken out, the abbot had induced them 
to go back to their old home and begin their religious life 
again. The abbot also " concealed the treason of Henry 
Sawley, monk, who said no secular knave should be head 
of the Church." These accusations were framed by a 
friar named Robert Legat; and a priest named Roger 
Pele, vicar of Dalton, said that the abbot did not keep 
the King's injunctions; and one of the monks, John 
Broughton, added that the prophecies of the Holy Maid 
of Kent were known at Furness. A tenant, too, declared 
that the abbot of Furness had ordered the monks to do 
the best for the commons, " which," runs the official 
record, " the abbot in his confession doth flatly deny." 

As regards the monks, the prior, Brian Garner, and 
one of the seniors, John Grayn, were reported to have 
assembled the convent tenants on All-Hallows Eve, when 
the latter said that " the King should make no more abbots 
there, but they would choose them themselves," etc. 

The result of the inquiry held at Furness was reported 
to the King by the Earl of Sussex. A sufficient amount 
of vague accusation had been obtained against the abbot 

[1051 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

to have secured for him a fate similar to that of the abbots 
of Whalley and Sawley, and to ensure the passing of the 
monastic property to the King by the attainder and death 
of the abbot. The Earl of Sussex, however, hit upon 
another plan. The King had written to him : " By such 
examinations as you have sent us it appeareth that the 
abbot of Furness and divers of his monks have not been 
of that truth towards us that to their duties appertaineth. 
We desire and pray you, therefore, with all the dexterity 
you can, to devise and excogitate, to use all the means to 
you possible, to ensearch and try out the very truth of their 
proceedings and with whom they or any of them have 
had any intelligence . . . and our pleasure is that you 
shall, upon further examination, commit the said abbot 
and such of his monks as you shall suspect to have been 
offenders to ward; to remain till you shall, upon the sig- 
nification unto us of such other things as by your wisdom 
you shall try out, know further our pleasure." 

In reply to this communication Sussex wrote on April 
6, that it was impossible to get more out of the abbot 
than he had previously done. He had committed to safe 
custody in Lancaster Castle two of the monks (of whom 
Henry Sawley was apparently one) "which was all we 
could find faulty." Seeing, therefore, that it was not 
likely that any " material thing," done " after the 
pardon," would be discovered against the abbot and his 
monks " that would serve the purpose," the earl now ex- 
posed his own plan for obtaining at once the rich posses- 
sions of Furness Abbey for the King. " I, the said earl," 

[io6] 




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FURNESS ABBEY 

he says, " devising with myself, if one way would not 
serve how and by what other means the said monks might 
be rid from the said abbey and consequently how the 
same be at your gracious pleasure, caused the said abbot 
might be sent for to Whalley; and thereupon, after we 
had examined him, and indeed could not perceive that 
it was possible for us to have any other matter, I, the said 
earl, as before by the advice of other of your council, 
determined to essay him as of myself, whether he would 
be contented to surrender, give and grant, unto your heirs 
and assigns the said monastery." 

The position did not admit of any doubt. It was a 
choice between death and surrender: and with the fate 
of his brother abbots clearly before his mind, and with 
the bodies of Abbot Paslew of Whalley and his compan- 
ions still, perhaps, swinging before the gate of Whalley,, 
it is not surprising that Sussex carried his point. So on 
April 5, 1537, in the presence of Sussex and others. Abbot 
Roger Pyle signed the official paper surrendering Fur- 
ness and all its possessions to the King, because of the 
" misorder and evil lives, both unto God and our prince, 
of the brethren of the said monastery." 

Immediately this document had been obtained from 
the abbot, three knights were despatched from Whalley 
" to take into their hands, rule and governance the said 
house to the use of your highness and to see that the monks 
and servants of the same be kept in due order and noth- 
ing be embezzled." Then the deed of surrender was 
drawn up ready for the signature of the monks, and on 

[109] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

the following Monday, April 9, 1537, the commissioners 
arrived with the abbot and the deed already prepared. It 
was read to the community in their Chapter House, and 
they at once took the only course possible and ratified the 
act of their superior. Thirty monks out of the thirty- 
three named as the community by Sussex signed the docu- 
ment, two were in prison in Lancaster, only one apparently 
did not affix his name to the instrument of their corporate 
extinction. 

No pension was granted to the monks in exchange for 
the surrender. All they had of their own on being turned 
out into the world was forty shillings each, except three 
out of the thirty, " which being sick and impotent were 
given sixty shillings." 

^" The vast and magnificent edifice of Furness was for- 
saken," writes Canon Dixon, " the lamp of the altar of 
St. Mar}^ went out forever, and in the deserted cloisters no 
sound was heard but the axe and hammer of those who 
came to cut away the lead, dash down the bells, hew away 
the rafters and break in pieces the arches and pillars. 
Thus dismantled, the ruin was left as a common quarry 
for the convenience of every countrs^man who could cart 
away the sculptured stones for buildings a pigstye or a 

byre." 

The sales of the monastic goods realised the great sum 
of close on £800, and bands of imported workmen were 
employed for a long time on the work of wrecking the 
buildings. "Also," says the official account, "paid to 
divers and sundry labourers and artificers hired, as well 
for taking down of the lead of the said monastery, with 

[no] 



FURNESS ABBEY 

costs of melting and casting the same, as for pulling 
down of the church, steeple and other ^ housing ' of the 
said monastery, with emption and provision of ropes and 
other engines occupied about the same, £70 4s. 9d." 

\Here, as elsewhere, the poor felt the suppression most 
keenly. From time immemorial, on Maundy Thursday, 
alms had been bestowed on the poor at the abbey gate, 
and a hundred poor boys in the cloister each received 
more than a shilling of our money. Yearly on St. Cris- 
pin's Day five oxen were distributed among the most 
needy. Each week eight poor widows had their bread 
and beer at the monastic kitchen, daily the poor were re- 
lieved at the almonry, whilst from the foundation of the 
house till the dissolution thirteen poor people were daily 
maintained within its walls. 

vlt has been computed that the total of the charities 
distributed at Furness Abbey whilst the monks were there 
amounted yearly to a sum equal to £500 of our money. 
^ The ruins, which are now the property of the Duke of 
Devonshire, are religiously cared for, and they cannot 
fail to exert a fascination over all lovers of architecture 
and of the bygone ages. Wordsworth has expressed 
what he felt on seeing Furness in one of his sonnets: 

Here, where havoc tired and rash undoing 

Man left the structure to become Time's prey; 

A soothing spirit following in the way 

That nature takes, her counter-work pursuing; 

See how her ivy clasps the sacred ruin 

Fall to prevent or beautify decay, 

And on the mouldering walls how bright, how gay 

The flowers in pearly dew their bloom renewing. 

[Ill] 



FOUNTAINS 

^^M -^T is hardly possible to imagine a more fascinat- 
I ing sight than the ruins of Fountains seen in 
^P the distance from the high ground above. For 
beauty of position, for architectural perfection, 
and for the extent of the still existing buildings, the abbey 
of " Our Lady of the Water Springs," must be allowed 
the first place among similar English sights. The 
obvious care now bestowed upon the preservation of all 
that destroying hands have left adds in an unexpected 
way to the charm which the remains of church and build- 
ings exert over the mind. No tree or shrub has been 
allowed to grow up from within either church or cloister; 
no ivy clothes the walls or clings to muUion and pillar; 
and no scattered masonry cumbers the ground. All is in 
order, as far as order is possible in such a vast ruin, and 
the effect of the whitened walls and towers as seen from 
afar is to add a somewhat mysterious, ghostly character 
to the buildings. Over all stands out against the sky the 
great tower which forms so distinguishing a mark at 
Fountains, and on its cornice the visitor may still read the 
legend cut deep in stone: Regi soBculorum, etc., "To the 
Immortal and Invisible King of Ages, to the only God, 
be honour and glory forever and ever. Amen." 

[112] 




w 



FOUNTAINS 

Fountains owed its existence to the movement towards 
a stricter form of religious life which was initiated at 
Citeau in the last quarter of the eleventh century by St. 
Robert, and was carried to perfection by Stephen 
Harding and St. Bernard. During the lifetime of the 
latter, the Cistercians, as they were called after their 
place of origin, became established in England, and the 
Order quickly took deep root. The first house in this 
country was apparently that of Furness in Lancashire, 
founded by Stephen of Blois in 1127. The main object 
aimed at by this branch of the Benedictine Order was to 
secure the greater personal sanctification of the members 
in the stricter observance of the Rule. For the purpose 
of developing the contemplative side of the religious life 
the Cistercians made choice of lonely valleys or other 
sequestered spots where they might lead a life of solitude, 
free from care and distracting thoughts. Hence came 
the saying: Bernardus valles amabat. 

In Yorkshire the first foundation made by St. Bernard, 
as " a layer from his noble vine at Clairvaulx," was at 
Rievaulx. At this time, in some of the Benedictine mon- 
asteries of England, there were religious souls who de- 
sired to take part in the Cistercian movement, and to 
leave their own cloister for a stricter form of observance. 
So when the mode of life at Rievaulx became known at 
St. Mary's, York, twenty miles away, some of the monks 
were moved with a desire to join the new observance. At 
first there were but seven of them, and, apparently, the 
difficulty they experienced in obtaining permission to 

[115] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

leave their monastery was mainly owing to the good state 
of their own house of St. Mary. With opposition and 
discussion, however, their numbers grew until there were 
sufficient for a Cistercian foundation, namely thirteen, of 
whom one was the prior. The abbot at St. Mary's hav- 
ing refused absolutely to allow his monks to take up their 
new venture, they appealed to Thurstan, the Archbishop 
of York, to help them. After convincing himself of their 
genuine vocation, the Archbishop agreed to do so, and 
under his protection they left St. Mary's Abbey on Octo- 
ber 4, 1 132, taking nothing away with them but their 
religious habits. St. Bernard subsequently wrote to 
Abbot Geoffrey of St. Mary's to deny that he or any of 
the Clairvaulx monks had suggested or inspired this 
exodus from his monastery, but at the same time he indi- 
cated that to him in all this movement the working of 
God's Spirit could be seen. The Saint also wrote to en- 
courage the monks of the York abbey who desired to pass 
under his* rule, and to tell them he was sending Brother 
Geoffrey, " a holy and religious man," to rule over 
them and train them in the practices of the Cistercian 
Order. 

In the meantime the twelve monks from St. Mary's, 
York, with Prior Richard at their head, had left their 
cloister and were shut up in the house of Archbishop 
Thurstan, since, notwithstanding the protests and cen- 
sures of their abbot, they refused to return to St. Mary's. 
Finally, the Achbishop gave them a plot of ground near 
Ripon, which had previously been a wild, uncultivated 

[116] 




"^^-P^ r '^ri Y- 



FOUNTAINS 

place. It was situated near to the running water of the 
river Skell, was enclosed by rocky ground and thorn- 
covered hills, and was a fitting place in which to build for 
themselves a monastery of strict observance. He ap- 
pointed Prior Richard their abbot and blessed him upon 
Christmas Day, 1 132. The winter was upon them and it 
was passed amid great privations, for there were as yet no 
buildings whatever, and the little colony was lodged be- 
neath a giant elm which stood in the midst of the valley 
and possibly also under some of the great yew trees which 
bear the name of the " seven sisters," and one or two of 
which, preserved in their old age with every care, still 
remain. The elm, as a manifestation of God's care over 
this little flock, is said to have kept its leaves green during 
the whole of the long northern winter. There the monks 
all lived together, twelve priests and one deacon, and, as 
far as might be, carried out the regular life during the 
dark days and long nights under the branches of the great 
elm. The bishop provided them with bread, and for 
drink they had the overflowing water of their stream. So 
the place became to them, Sancta Maria de Fontibus — 
Our Lady of the Springs. After the summer had come 
to them in the valley, they took counsel together and 
determined to send to St. Bernard with a request that he 
would take them under his care and make them associates 
of the celebrated monastery of Clairvaulx. This the 
Saint did, and, as has just been said, he then sent them as 
their guide the experienced brother Geoffrey. Thus was 
begun the great abbey of Fountains. 

["9] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

The little band quickly grew; seventeen new brethren 
arrived almost at the same time, and of these, seven were 
priests. Alas I the resources of the infant community did 
not increase with their numbers, and for some time the 
lot of the monks of Fountains was hard and indeed well- 
nigh impossible. To add to their trials and misfortunes 
a famine everywhere afflicted the land at that time; al- 
though the abbot went out of his valley to seek for food 
for his brethren, it was not forthcoming, and for a while 
at least the community had to subsist as best they could 
upon the leaves of the trees and such herbs as could be 
found in their valley. Their elm tree, as the chronicle 
says, thus at this time furnished them with food as well as 
with shelter. 

One day, so the story goes, whilst in the straits of 
poverty, there came to them a poor man asking help in 
Christ's name. The porter replied that they had nothing 
to give and, indeed, were themselves in absolute need; 
but on the poor man persisting in his request the monk 
went to his abbot to report the case. The abbot, finding 
that there were two loaves left in the house, ordered 
that one should be given to the beggar in full trust that 
the Lord would Himself make provision for His serv- 
ants who relied upon Him. Nor was his confidence 
disappointed, for within a brief space two men arrived 
from Knaresborough Castle with a plentiful supply of 
food for all the brethren. Recognising this as a mani- 
festation of God's goodness to them, they gave to Him 
thanks, " Who gives food to those who fear Him." 

[120] 



FOUNTAINS 

As time went on the situation of the little band of 
monks at Fountains became intolerable. Poverty they 
had wedded, but not famine and destitution. So Abbot 
Richard went over to see St. Bernard, and to try and find 
some place in fair France, where they might be able 
at least to support their lives whilst serving God. But 
even during the time when he was on his journey, be- 
hold, the long-looked-for benefactor appeared at Foun- 
tains in the person of Master Hugh, Dean of York, who 
joined the community, bringing with him books, money 
and possessions. Part of the money they at once devoted 
to assist the poor; part they reserved for their own sup- 
port, and part they employed in building up their monas- 
tery. And, as is so often the case, this good fortune did 
not come alone: first another canon of York, Serlo by 
name, also a rich man, joined the community, and then a 
second canon, called Toste, homo jucundus et sociabilis, 
a pleasant and sociable man, as he is called in the chroni- 
cle, followed his example. Other blessings followed in 
swift succession; additions were made to their property 
by various benefactors, and privileges were granted by 
Kings and Popes. 

\From that day, writes Serlo, who as a monk was now 
the annalist of his house, " God blessed our valleys with 
the blessing of heaven above and of the deep that lieth 
under, multiplying our brethren, increasing our posses- 
sions, extending our vineyards and pouring down the 
showers of His benediction upon us. . . . The Lord, 
as the Prophet said, was a wall round about us, on the 

[I2l] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

right hand and on the left. He permitted no man to hurt 
us and He blessed the works of our hands." " Oh God! " 
says Serlo, in heartfelt thanksgiving, " what perfection 
of life was there not at this time at Fountains! What 
emulation in virtue! What fervour in keeping the 
Rule! What discipline! Our Fathers were become a 
spectacle to angels and to men; and they impressed on 
their posterity that method of holy religious life, which, 
with God's help, will be kept here for ever." 

Soon after its foundation the Abbey of Fountains was 
called on to send out colonies to begin new houses. In 
1 137 a nobleman named Ralph de Merlay, after spend- 
ing by chance a day at Fountains, determined to build a 
similar abbey near his own property at Morpeth. The 
result was the establishment of Newminster with its first 
abbot from Fountains. In time the house became the 
fruitful mother of three Cistercian daughters at Pipe- 
well, Sawley, and Roche. The next year, 1138, Kirk- 
stead Abbey on the river Witham and Louth Park was 
also founded, the two colonies leaving Fountains on the 
same day. Again in 1145, at the prayer of Hugh de 
Bolebec, the monks of Fountains made a foundation at 
Woburn. And in 1146 thirteen of the brethren, at the 
invitation of the bishop of Bergen, who had visited Foun- 
tains and was charmed with it, went over into Norway 
and established the monastery at Lisakloster. Their 
leader in this expedition far afield was Ralph, one of the 
original community which had gone out from St. Mary's, 
York. In his old age Abbot Ralph returned to Foun- 

[122] 



FOUNTAINS 

tains to die, and it is pleasantly said in the chronicle that 
there by God's providence " an angel was specially 
deputed to visit and console him, w^ho was also wont to 
awaken him when he slept too long at night." 

In the following year 1147, three colonies were de- 
spatched from the prolific house of Fountains; namely, 
Kirkstall, Meaux, and Vaudey; and thus in the space of 
less than twenty years St. Mary of Fountains had estab- 
lished eight daughter houses. A few years later the 
Cistercian General Chapter discouraged this multiplica- 
tion of houses, and it was feared that the Order had been 
growing too quickly to maintain the spiritual vigour of 
the individual monasteries. 

The first necessary buildings were erected at Fountains 
during the administration of the first two abbots (1132- 
1139). The monk Geoffrey, who it will be remembered 
was sent over from Clairvaulx by St. Bernard, showed 
them what buildings were needed by Cistercians: the 
great cloister with the church on the north, the Chapter 
House with parlour and library on the east, with the 
dormitory above; the refectory, calefactory and kitchen 
on the south; the store-house with dormitory for lay 
brethren on the west. Outside the central group were 
infirmary, guest house, mills, bakehouse, etc. The first 
buildings were partly of stone and partly of wood, the 
stone coming from the rocky sides of the valley in which 
they lived. 

About the middle of the twelfth century misfortune 
befell the abbey. The abbot, Henry Murdack, became 

[125] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

involved in certain disputes about the succession to the 
Sec of York: one party, deeming themselves injured by 
the adherence of the abbey to the other side, made 
their way into the valley and, forcing the gates of the 
abbey, sacked it. Much was ruthlessly destroyed, some 
things plundered and carried away, the rest in the spirit 
of wanton waste was set on fire. The great church, built 
with such labour and at such a cost, was burnt, and the 
very altar was not respected. The community, says the 
chronicler, *^ stood about their holy place and saw what 
had been raised by the sweat of their own brows, con- 
sumed to ashes." By the help of the neighbours, how- 
ever, much of the damage was quickly repaired, so that 
in the end " the new was better than the old." 

In 1 1 70 Robert of Pipewell, on the death of Abbot 
Richard, was chosen to rule at Fountains. He was evi- 
dently a powerful administrator and is praised by the 
author of the chronicle for many virtues. He is espe- 
cially commended for his zeal in beautifying the church 
and "erecting sumptuous buildings," but what special 
part he added we are not told. Three abbots, all named 
John, ruled Fountains during the first half of the thir- 
teenth century, and in their time (1203-1247) the fabric 
of the house was completed. The number of the 
brethren, even at the beginning of this period, had in- 
creased so much that the choir was found to be too small 
to contain them and the altars were not sufficient for all 
to say Mass. It was at the time when Abbot John, the 
first of that name, ruled the community. The days were 

[126] 



FOUNTAINS 

evil, and it was at this period that King John was enact- 
ing vast sums from the religious houses of England, and 
many a house had to sell even its altar plate and pledge 
the sacred vestments to satisfy the royal rapacity. Never- 
theless, although many considered him rash, the abbot, 
trusting to God's providence, determined to pull down 
the east part of the church and rebuild it on lines of 
greater magnificence. To his large ideas is commonly 
ascribed the new chancel and the plan of the chapel of 
the nine altars. He had begun, and had even erected 
certain columns of the structure, when he died. The 
third Abbot John, who held the government for twenty- 
seven years, completed what his predecessors had begun. 
Indeed, a whole series of important buildings are as- 
signed to this time, including the chapel of the nine 
altars, the new choir, the reconstruction of the cloister, 
the infirmary, the guest house, the pavement of the 
church with tiles, the bakehouse and the bridge. 

At this point the delightful chronicle of Fountains 
fails us, but the stone records of the buildings themselves 
tell us that little was done to the material fabric from 
1247, the date of the death of Abbot John III, till in 
1479, when another Abbot John — ^John Darnton — made 
some improvements and additions. He pulled out the 
old windows in the west end of the nave and in the 
chapel of the nine altars, and put in decorated ones 
in their place. After him, quite on the very eve of the 
destruction of the monastery. Abbot Marmaduke Huby 
built the great tower which still looks down upon the 

[127] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

desecrated building, proclaiming the faith of those who 
raised it to God's glory. 

The end came to Fountains with startling suddenness. 
On a Sunday in July, 1536, a preacher who was main- 
taining at Jervaulx that the King was head of the Church 
was interrupted by one of the monks from Fountains who 
happened to be there. Cistercians could hold no such 
new-fangled doctrine; they certainly did not teach that 
at Fountains. Parliament had just suppressed the lesser 
monasteries, and although it had at the same time de- 
clared that the greater abbeys, of which Fountains was 
one, were above suspicion, there were many who saw in 
the fate of the houses under £200 a year a presage of the 
coming general suppression. Although, as we now 
know, nothing could have warded ofif the rising storm, 
it was no doubt a misfortune for Fountains that at so 
critical a time it should have had a superior neither 
wise, nor competent, nor even worthy. Abbot Thirsk's 
deposition had been mooted some years before, and he 
was accused of dissipating the goods of his house and of 
not seeing that the service of God was kept at Fountains 
as of old. Layton and Legh, the King's commissioners 
in 1536, suggested even worse things about him and com- 
pelled him to resign. He had a scanty pension assigned 
to him, and took refuge at Jervaulx; there, becoming in- 
volved in the Pilgrimage of Grace in some way not quite 
obvious, he was hanged at Tyburn as the easiest way of 
getting rid of him and his pension. 

On Abbot Thirsk's deposition the office was purchased 

[128] 




A BRIDGE, FOUNTAINS ABBEY 



FOUNTAINS 

by one Marmaduke Bradley for a large sum paid to 
Thomas Crumwell, the King's all-powerful minister. 
The commissioners declare that he was one of the wisest 
monks in England, and their immediate proof of their 
character of him was the offer he made through them to 
buy the abbey. At any rate Marmaduke Bradley se- 
cured a good pension for himself by surrendering the 
house into the King's hands, three years after his appoint- 
ment, in November, 1539. 

Then began the destruction. The abbot went to 
Ripon, where he held a prebendal stall; but the prior 
and his thirty brethren were quickly expelled, to find 
their own way in the world and to face the coming win- 
ter. They were despoiled of their religious habits, were 
each allotted a citizen's gown, and were then set outside 
their own gate and told to find their way about a 
world which many of them had left long years before, 
and under circumstances for which they were ill pre- 
pared. 

^The gold, silver and other precious ornaments of the 
shrines and altars, the chalices and cups and " Jewells " 
generally were collected and, with the best of the vest- 
ments and copes and albs, were sent up to London. In 
all 939 ounces of silver and thirteen ounces of gold with 
precious stones were thus sent. The crowds, which as- 
sembled to see the end, as at the daughter house of Roche, 
no doubt helped themselves to what they could lay their 
hands upon; the servants of the commissioners probably 
took more, and even their masters did not disdain to an- 

C131] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

nex an article or two of the plunder. Then the windows 
and doors and shutters disappeared, and the bells were 
taken down and broken up for removal. Finally, the 
roofs — especially where there was lead — were pulled 
down, and in the choir and nave of the beautiful church 
huge fires were made from the wood of the stalls and 
screens and altars, to melt down the lead into pigs and 
fodders against the coming of the King's valuers. When 
all was counted up it was found that the church goods 
fetched only £60 and the domestic goods £160. There 
still remained on the ground 711 fodders of lead and ten 
bells, weighing 10,000 pounds in all. 

As regards the property. Sir Richard Gresham, father 
of the more celebrated Sir Thomas, wrote to Crumwell 
to secure from the King, " by purchase of his grace, cer- 
tain lands belonging to the house of Fountains, to the 
value of £350 a year, after the rate of twenty years' pur- 
chase." " The sum of money," he adds, " amounteth to 
£7,000." What the value of the lands really was it is 
impossible to say, but one obvious result of the dissolution 
was the wholesale raising of the rents previously paid by 
the monastic tenants, to the great detriment of the poor. 
An instance of this hardship may be cited in this very 
case of Fountains. The King's valuers, in 1540, placed 
on the granges belonging to the abbey, which had pre- 
viously paid £156 14s. 4d., an increased value of £30, or 
nearly a fifth. Thirty-five years afterwards, in 1575, 
Gresham's increased rental, not including that on five 
of the granges, was £45 7s. more than all were rented at 

[132] 



FOUNTAINS 

according to the valuation of 1540, or a rise of some fifty 
per cent, on the whole. 

The editor of The Memorials of Fountains for the 
Surtees Society, after noticing the facts given above, says 
that it " will show that the monks were just and merciful 
landlords, and that the lament of the fall of the abbeys 
in these parts, which old Henry Jenkins lived to report 
to the Cavaliers and Roundheads, might have partially 
arisen from more material reasons than a change of re- 
ligion." 



[133] 



GLASTONBURY 

^^^^^HE name of Glastonbury carries the imagination 
m C| far back into the dim past. The few scattered 
^^^^^ and grass-grown ruins, which now alone remain 
of the once vast pile of buildings, mark the site 
of one of the most renowned sanctuaries of the Christian 
world. The history of this sacred spot goes back to days 
before the age of written records, for it is founded upon 
legends which connect it even with some of the first dis- 
ciples of our Lord Himself. The story of the place is 
told in song and prose, in fact and fiction, in the legends 
and in the chronicles, which relate the beginnings of the 
English people. It opens with a vision of a venerable 
man from the tomb of Christ, bearing with him the Holy 
Grail, the chalice of his Master's Supper, and planting 
in the soil of Somerset his staff cut from some Eastern 
thorn. Tennyson thus alludes to this ancient legend: 

The cup, the cup itself from which our Lord 
Drank at the last sad Supper with his own, 
This from the blessed land of Aramat, 
After the day of darkness, when the dead 
Went wandering over Moriah — the good Saint 
Arimathaean Joseph, journeying brought 
To Glastonbury, where the winter thorn 
Blossoms at Christmas, mindful of our Lord. 

[134] 



GLASTONBURY 

And the long story of the place ends in the sixteenth 
century with the violent and ignominious death of an old, 
white-haired monk, the last of a long and honourable suc- 
cession of abbots, by order of an English king in the evil 
days of Tudor despotism. 

Between St. Joseph of Arimathea, the hero of Glaston- 
bury's earliest legend, and Abbot Richard Whiting, the 
victim of an English king's rapacity, the space of well- 
nigh fifteen centuries intervened; and Chalice Hill and 
Tor Hill, which still look down upon the ruins, and the 
very names of which are associated with him who 
brought the Holy Grail to our shores, and with him 
whose gallows crowned the height by St. Michael's 
tower, have been silent witnesses during all those cen- 
turies of a great and varied history. The memories of 
the British Inyswytryn, the Saxon Glaestingburge, the 
modern Glastonbury, or as it was sometimes called the 
isle of Avalon, include the names of Arthur, the British 
hero, and of Alfred, the saviour of the Saxon race from 
the ferocity and rapacity of the Danes. Hither too came 
Gildas, from his hermitage on the Steep Holme away 
across the waters of the Channel, to reconcile Arthur to 
his Queen Guinevere. And hither also: 



To the isIand-valley of Avilion; 
Where falls not hail, or rain or any snow, 
Nor even wind blows loudly ; but it lies 
Deep-mead ow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns 
And bowery hollows, crown 'd with summer sea. 

[137] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

Hither came Arthur, when wounded in the battle of 
Camlin, to die and seek for burial by the side of his 
Queen, who had already been laid to rest within the pre- 
cincts of that sanctuary. Here, centuries later, in 1191, 
King Henry II caused to be made an examination of 
the spot pointed out by the Welsh bards as the place of 
Arthur's burial, and Giraldus Cambrensis, who professes 
to have been an eyewitness, describes the finding of a 
large flat stone with a leaden cross underneath, bearing 
in rude characters the inscription: ^^ Hie jacet sepultus 
inclitus rex Arturius in insula Avaloniaf' 

Beneath this again there was discovered a large coffin 
of hollowed oak with two cavities, one containing the 
bones of Arthur, the other those of Guinevere. They 
were removed to a handsome tomb in the church, where 
they remained undisturbed until 1278, when Edward I 
and his Queen, Eleanor, kept Easter at the abbey. On that 
occasion the King desiring to see with his own eyes the 
relics of the illustrious British King and his Consort, 
ordered the tomb to be opened. Edward himself took 
out the relics of Arthur; carrying these, and Eleanor 
those of Guinevere, with much ceremony they bore them 
to the High Altar, where the people were allowed to in- 
spect them. 

In fact Glastonbury was already old in its traditions, 
and its memory was venerable in its legends before the 
Briton gave place to the Saxon. When, some time about 
the year 650, the shrine passed into the hands of the 
Saxon conqueror, these latter were no longer pagan idola- 

[138] 



GLASTONBURY 

ters, but Christian warriors, who venerated the sacred 
traditions of the spot no less than had the conquered 
Britons. 

One relic of this early time was preserved through the 
course of the centuries even until the destruction of the 
monastery in the days of Henry VIII. According to 
tradition, St. David of Menevia came to Inyswytryn, as 
Glastonbury was called in British times, bringing with 
him precious gifts and offerings and, it is said, anxious 
to make the sanctuary his last resting-place. To show 
his veneration he proposed to dedicate the church to our 
Blessed Lady, but was admonished in a dream of the 
supernatural consecration of the shrine at its first erec- 
tion. St. David thereupon built a second church near 
to the ancient wooden one, and dedicated it to the Mother 
of God. To this sacred place he made an offering of a 
rich altar stone of sapphire adorned with gold and costly 
gems, a present from the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and this 
precious gift survived to the end in the possession of the 
Abbey. During the contests between Saxon and Dane, 
which caused such havoc and destruction throughout the 
length and breadth of the land, this "Sapphire altar" 
was concealed, and for a time its hiding-place appears 
to have been forgotten. Subsequently, however, the 
stone was discovered in a recess of the old church, and it 
appears as one of the abbey's most treasured possessions 
in the inventory drawn up by the commissioners ap- 
pointed by Henry VHI to seize the property of the 
abbey in 1539. " Item," it is recorded, " delyvered unto 

[139] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

his majestic ... a superatare garnished with silver 
and gilt, called the Great saphire of Glasgonburge." 

During the Saxon period the abbey increased in re- 
nown and in influence: it became indeed the centre of 
Christianity in southern and western England. Although 
we have little direct proof of the fact, it seems almost 
certain that wandering Irish scholars came over to Glas- 
tonbury, tarried and taught there for a while, and depart- 
ing left behind them their books and treatises to be the 
treasured possessions of future generations of scholars. 
The sanctuary, probably by reason of its position, escaped 
complete destruction at the hands of the Danes, who 
passed over the country wrecking and plundering monas- 
teries and churches and overthrowing the Christian altars. 
It suffered, however, greatly: and it was at this period, 
at the lowest depth of his ill-fortune, that King Alfred 
sought shelter in the neighbourhood and, at least accord- 
ing to legend, found strength and courage to make his 
successful stand against the dreaded Dane in a vision 
which came to him in the sanctuary at Glastonbury. 

lln the tenth century the abbey was ruled by one who 
not only shed a glory over it by the holiness of his life and 
by his abilities, but who was also called upon to shape 
the destinies of his country. This was the celebrated St. 
Dunstan, who, born almost under the shadow of the mon- 
astery, in his youth became a monk there. He subse- 
quently as abbot did much to rebuild the walls of the 
sanctuary, and to implant in the souls of his brethren a 
love for the true principles of the Benedictine method 

[140] 



GLASTONBURY 

of life. For a while Dunstan, destined for a more ex- 
tended sphere of usefulness, found peace and true happi- 
ness in the secluded cloister life at Glastonbury. His 
biographers picture him for us as sitting in the corridors 
of the abbey with the brethren ; as walking with a com- 
panion about the enclosure leaning on a staff; as visiting 
the cells and offices to see that all was in order; as super- 
intending the building and ornamentation of the abbey 
which under his care was then rising from its ruins; as 
even personally watching over the arrangements of the 
kitchen and other domestic concerns; or as rising before 
the day had dawned, to copy, study or revise the manu- 
scripts of his house, or to kneel motionless in the church 
with hands lifted heavenwards and face moist with tears. 
All agree in describing his kindly genial demeanour to 
others, his gentle yet firm method of teaching and his 
special love for boys. After a period of perhaps fifteen 
years spent in his beloved home at Glastonbury, and in 
his best-loved occupations of the cloistered life, Dunstan 
became Bishop of Winchester, and then Archbishop of 
Canterbury. But amidst all the occupations for Church 
and State which engrossed the greater part of his life, 
he never forgot his monastic home, and his name has 
ever been irrevocably associated with Glastonbury. 

During the closing period of the struggle between 
Saxon and Dane in England, in the first decades of the 
eleventh century, the sanctuary was honoured by the mon- 
archs of both dynasties. Edmund Ironside enriched the 
abbey with land and possessions and when, after valiant 

[143] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

though vain struggles, he died for his Saxon fatherland, 
his body was laid to rest in the spot he had chosen for 
his tomb in St. Dunstan's Church. To Glastonbury also 
in 1030 came King Canute, his Danish successor: and 
here, after confirming every gift and privilege granted 
to the place by his Saxon predecessors, he knelt in prayer 
at the tomb of his rival and spread over it a covering en- 
riched with the embroidery of skilled Saxon ladies. Ten 
years later King Hardicanute testified his devotion to the 
hallowed spot by the present of a superb shrine to hold 
the relics of St. Benignus. 

The Norman Conquest brought difficulties in the gov- 
ernment of the house. It was part of the Conqueror's 
policy to replace Saxon bishops and abbots by Norman 
prelates wherever this could be done. So here, as Glas- 
tonbury, the Saxon abbot Ailnoth was made to give place 
to the Norman Thurstan. Ailnoth and several of the 
monks of his house were interned by Lanfranc's order at 
Canterbury and at the same time a not inconsiderable 
portion of the monastic estate was distributed amongst 
the foreign followers of William. The imposition of 
Norman superiors over them must obviously have been 
everywhere distasteful to the English monks. The very 
presence in their midst of an alien abbot was a standing 
reminder of the fallen fortunes of the English race; and 
in the case of Glastonbury this not unnatural resentment 
was aggravated by the imperious temper and inconsid- 
erate disposition of the individual chosen by the King 
to rule them, and by his determination to uproot all old 

[144] 



GLASTONBURY 

English customs and traditions, in order to impose upon 
them what at least the monks considered to be new-fan- 
gled Norman notions of monasticism. An attempt made 
to force the Glastonbury monks to adopt the chant of one 
William of Fescamp in place of what they had been ac- 
customed to, and which rightly or wrongly they regarded 
as the music they had received from Rome itself, led to 
a refusal of the monks to obey in this matter. Abbot 
Thurstan sent for armed laymen into the Chapter House 
to coerce them by a show of force. The monks took 
refuge in the church, out of which the abbot's armed men 
strove to drag them. This at first failed, and the monks 
took refuge in the sanctuary, only to be fired upon by 
the arrows of the Frenchmen. In the end the laymen 
rushed in and regardless of the sanctity of the place 
^* slew some of the monks and wounded many more, so 
that blood ran down from the altar on to the steps, and 
from the steps to the floor." *' Three," adds the chron- 
icle, " were smitten to death and eighteen wounded." 

The horror caused by this scandal led to the removal 
of Abbot Thurstan by order of William the Conqueror; 
and for a time there was peace. The Norman abbot, 
however, bided his time at Caen, and taking advantage 
of King Rufus's empty coffers, he offered that monarch 
500 pounds of silver for permission to return to Glaston- 
bury. His reappearance immediately brought on fresh 
disturbances. Many of the monks sought shelter in 
neighbouring monasteries, and did not return until the 
appointment of Herlewyn on Thurstan's death. 

[145] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

In 1 1 26 Henry of Blois, the nephew of King Henry I, 
became abbot of Glastonbury, and although he was made 
Bishop of Winchester after only three years of rule, he 
obtained leave to retain the emoluments of his abbacy. 
He lived to enjoy these revenues for forty-five years, 
but in the main he spent them upon the reconstruction 
of the church and monastery. Adam of Domerham, the 
chronicler of the house, records that " he built the bell 
tower, the Chapter House, cloister, lavatory, refectory 
and dormitory; also the infirmary with its chapel; a 
splendid large palace; a spacious gateway, remarkable 
for its squared stones; a large brew-house, and stables for 
many horses." These he erected right from the founda- 
tion to their completion, and over and " besides these 
works he gave many princely ornaments to the Church." 

King Henry II refused to allow the monks to elect a 
superior on the death of Bishop de Blois, but he sent an 
official to manage the monastic revenues, which he kept 
in his own hands. During this time, and, indeed, not 
very long after the death of the bishop, a fire destroyed 
most of the monastic buildings. This happened in 11 84, 
and the old monastic chronicler thus bemoans the dis- 
aster: "In the following summer, that is to say on St. 
Urban's day [May 25, 1184], the whole of the monastery, 
except a chamber constructed in the Chapel by Abbot 
Robert, into which the monks afterwards betook them- 
selves, and the bell-tower built by Bishop Henry, was 
consumed by fire. The beautiful buildings lately erected 
by Henry of Blois and the Church a place so venerated 

[146] 



GLASTONBURY 

by all and the shelter of so many saints, were reduced to 
ashes. What sorrow was suffered 1 What groans arose! 
What tears were shed as the monks saw what had taken 
place, and pondered over the losses they had suffered. 
Their precious treasures, not only the gold and silver, but 
the stuffs and silks, the books and other ecclesiastical orna- 
ments were thrown into a state of confusion which must 
bring tears to the eyes even of those who far away do but 
hear of these things." 

King Henry II determined to restore Glastonbury 
out of the monastic revenues which he still kept in his 
hands, and which were administered by the King's offi- 
cial, FitzStephen. In the royal charter granted in 1184, 
Henry says: ^^ I, laying the foundation of the church at 
Glastonbury, which was reduced to ashes whilst it was in 
my hands, have determined to repair it either by myself 
or my heirs." Up to the time of the fire the old church 
or lady chapel had remained, as originally built, a 
wooden structure. According to a tradition in the place, 
St. Paulinus had not dared to touch what even in his day 
was regarded as a most sacred monument of antiquity, 
and to preserve it had cased it in boards lined with lead. 
When, in 708, Ina King of Wessex had granted his 
charter of privileges to the abbey, in order to render the 
act more solemn, he signed it in the lignea Basilica, 
which, following the advice of St. Aldhelm, he refrained 
from attempting even to beautify. This cherished relic 
of antiquity was totally destroyed by the fire of 11 84, and 
upon the site of the old wooden structure was built the 

[149] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

present lady chapel, now often miscalled " St. Joseph's 
Chapel." This beautiful specimen of thirteenth-century 
Gothic architecture was finished in 1216, and the chron- 
icler, Adam de Domerham, thus records the fact: " He 
[King Henry H] completed the church of squared stones 
of the most splendid work, in the place where from the 
beginning the old church had stood, sparing nothing that 
could add to its ornamentation." 

\The greater church, dedicated to SS. Peter and Paul, 
was only beginning to rise from its ashes when Henry 
died. This delayed the progress of reconstruction, and 
the vast building of which only a very inadequate idea 
may be formed by the ivy-grown arcaded walls, the 
pointed windows and great piers, which lift two portions 
of a springing keyless arch skyward, was carried out by 
a succession of abbots during the thirteenth and four- 
teenth centuries. " Standing on the greensward in the 
centre of the nave, in front of the ruins of the great arch," 
says a modern writer, " the eye cannot help filling in the 
missing structure. Three other great arches rise up to 
join their survivor, and to support the vaulting of the 
cental tower, the transepts with triforium and clerestory 
branch off right and left, through the screen with its 
rood " and Mary and John, " the vista of the choir con- 
verges on the High Altar and reredos, upon which the 
mellow light of the windows beyond cast soft blended 
colour. The twenty pillars of the nave lift up their 
arches to the arcading of the triforium, from which 
springs the decorated groining of the roof; tracery and 

[150] 



GLASTONBURY 

moulding, panel and shaft, colour and gold, tomb and 
brass fill in the picture; surely these are mailed knights 
kneeling, and sturdy burghers, and women in homespun, 
and arch-eyed children scattered over the glistening tiles 
of the pavement; the hooded monks glide in, the sanc- 
tuary glitters w^ith silk and embroidery, the organ rolls 
its echoes through the arches, chasing the fumes of the 
incense. A sudden hush, and the reverie has ended, and 
you stand, with the blue sky above, on the soft green- 
sward of the nave leading up grass-green steps to the soft 
sward of the sanctuary, and the great arch looks down on 
you while ivy and shrub cling to their foothold in its 
mouldings and crumbling masonry." 

If the reconstruction of the church of Glastonbury 
after the fire went on slowly enough during the two hun- 
dred years that followed the catastrophe, the abbots who 
ruled the destinies of the abbey during that period and 
after, vie with one another in collecting plate and jewels, 
missals and choir-books, vestments and copes and hang- 
ings with which to render the ceremonial at Glastonbury 
more worthy of the worship carried out within the newly 
built-up walls, and to make the place resplendent with 
all that art and skill and English craft could produce. 
As one reads the lists of precious gifts and cunningly 
fashioned plate, of the silks and brocades embroidered by 
English artists and enriched with needlework imagery 
and ornament, one can but sigh to think of the wanton de- 
struction which swept away all these art treasures with- 
out leaving even a trace of a collection which must have 

[151] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

been second to none of the ecclesiastical treasuries of 
Europe. 

The end came to the glories of Glastonbury as it came 
to the rest of the monastic establishments in the reign of 
Henry VHI. On a charge of resisting the King's de- 
sires, the venerable abbot, Richard Whiting, doomed to 
death before inquiry, was hanged with two of his brethren 
on the hill which still overlooks the ruins of this once 
iamous abbey. 



[152] 



GLOUCESTER 

^^^^^HE waters of the Severn seem in olden times to 
m C| have possessed some subtle attraction for the 
^^^^^ Order of St. Benedict. On the river^s banks, or 
at any rate in the valley from v^hich it collects 
its tributary streams, from Gloucester to Shrew^sbury, 
stood Tewkesbury, Pershore, Evesham, Malvern, and 
Worcester — seven as fine and as glorious monasteries as 
it is possible to find in England. Gloucester, the first 
in order, is in many ways the finest of this series; of some 
of them, alas! little now remains to show what they were 
in the days of their glory. The external effect of Glou- 
cester is somewhat marred by the long depressed roof of 
the nave, which is set at a level lower than that of the 
choir and presbytery, but the superb central tower, which 
is crowned with open-work parapets and pinnacles, pre- 
vents the eye from dwelling on this defect. " Glou- 
cester," says a modern writer, " contains some of the 
choicest triumphs of Gothic art, and numerous instances 
of the most ingenious contrivances of mechanical ability, 
taste and skill." 

The abbey of St. Peter's, Gloucester, was founded in 
Saxon times about the year 679; and in process of time it 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

counted no fewer than five cells under its jurisdiction, 
Ewias, Ewenny, Hereford, Kilpeck and Bromfield. 
Wulphere, the first Christian King of Mercia, is said to 
have commenced the work, which was carried on by his 
brother and successor Ethelred, who somewhat later laid 
aside his crown to become a monk at Bardney. History 
relates that in order to insure the continuation of the 
work after he had taken the cowl, he employed his 
nephew Osric, who ultimately, by the advice and help of 
Archbishop Theodore and of Basil, first bishop of Wor- 
cester, constituted his sister Kyneburgh the first abbess. 
She was blessed by Bishop Basil, and ruled the convent 
of St. Peter's, Gloucester, for twenty-nine years. 

To Kyneburgh succeeded Edburga, widow of Wul- 
phere, the original founder of Gloucester. She resigned 
her royal state, and in time, becoming second abbess of 
St. Peter's and ruling it for twenty-five years, was buried 
near her predecessor Kyneburgh in 735. She was fol- 
lowed in her office by Eva, the wife of Wulfere, son of 
Penda, who died and was buried at Gloucester in 767. 

From this time the abbesses disappear from history. 
During the wars which now commenced between Eg- 
bert, King of Wessex, and the Mercians, the nuns are 
supposed to have left their convent, and for a period of 
more than fifty years it remained deserted. After that 
time, when King Bearnulph of Mercia came to the 
throne, seeing the desolate state of the place, he rebuilt 
the monastery, but changed it into a house or college for 
secular priests. This arrangement continued till 1022, 

[156] 




GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL : THE CHOIR 



GLOUCESTER 

when King Canute, on the representation of St. Wulstan, 
Bishop of Worcester, placed Benedictine monks there, 
and Edric was blessed as the first abbot of Gloucester. 

At first the foundation did not appear to prosper, and 
it was not until William the Conqueror in 1072 ap- 
pointed a Norman monk, Serlo, that the success of the 
work seems to have been secured. At his accession Serlo 
is said to have found but two monks of full age and eight 
youths in the house, and at his death in 11 04 to have left 
a hundred professed religious. In 1082 William the 
Conqueror passed Christmas time at the monastery, and 
three years later the church was burnt, with a consider- 
able part of the city, by the adherents of Robert of Nor- 
mandy. Abbot Serlo set himself to repair the loss with 
characteristic energy; on June 29, 1089, the first stone was 
laid, and on July 15, iioo, the dedication of the new 
church was celebrated by the bishops of Worcester, 
Rochester, Hereford, and Bangor. The Norman pillars 
of the nave built at this time still survive. They are 
round, and so gigantic that they seem to dwarf the tri- 
forium and clerestory. This last has been converted into 
the early English style when the vaulting was erected. 
The original ground plan of the Norman church remains 
a marked feature of Gloucester, and may be noticed in 
the short transepts with eastern apsidal chapels and those 
of the apse. 

Ordericus Vitalis relates that it was a monk of Glou- 
cester who warned William Rufus of his approaching 
end in the New Forest. The King refused to listen, and 

[159] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

speaking of Abbot Serlo's letter to his attendants, he said: 
** I wonder why my Lord Serlo has been minded to write 
this to me, for he is, I believe, a good abbot and a judi- 
cious old man? In his extreme simplicity he sends to 
me, busied with so many affairs, the dreams of his snoring 
monks, and from a long distance has even sent them to 
me in writing. Does he suppose that I follow the ex- 
ample of the English, who will defer their journey or 
their business for the dreams of wheezing old women?" 

Thus speaking, says the chronicle, the King rose hastily 
and departed on his hunting expedition in which he met 
his death. 

Abbot Serlo was succeeded in 1104 by Peter, the for- 
mer prior of the house. Peter had long devoted himself 
to the study of the Holy Scriptures, and of him the obit- 
uary notice says that during his term of office he " encom- 
passed the monastery with a wall and enriched the cloister 
with a number of books." There exists a remarkable 
memorial of Abbot Peter in the Art Museum of South 
Kensington ; it is a candlestick of splendid workmanship, 
the date of which is known with certainty. An inscrip- 
tion on it states that it was made by the Abbot Peter for 
his church at Gloucester. It is of latten richly gilt and 
most elaborately ornamented, and it is undoubtedly a 
wonderful specimen of English art of the period. It is 
probable, however, that it did not remain long at Glou- 
cester, as in 1122 a disastrous fire again broke out there, 
which destroyed everything except a few books and vest- 
ments, and in this fire the candlestick would probably 

[160] 




< 

Q 
W 
X 
H 
< 
O 

w 

H 

CO 

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o 

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GLOUCESTER 

have perished. At some subsequent period this great 
work of art was given to the cathedral of Mans, the 
canons of which church sold it, and in process of time 
it was purchased by the South Kensington authorities. 

During the twelfth century the abbey of St. Peter's, 
Gloucester, continued to grow and to assert and defend 
its privileges under a succession of worthy abbots, of 
whom Gilbert Foliot, subsequently bishop of Hereford 
and London, was one. During the reign of King John, 
the monastery suffered grievously by the seizure of its 
goods, and by the sale of its plate to meet the frequent 
royal demands for subsidies. In 1216 the abbey church 
was the scene of great festivities at the coronation of the 
youthful King Henry HI, and in 1222, exactly a century 
after the great fire already mentioned, another and third 
disastrous fire broke out in the neighbourhood of the 
monastery. This same year the great Eastern Tower of 
the church was completed. In 1239, on September 16, 
amidst an immense concourse of spectators, Walter Can- 
tilupe, Bishop of Worcester, dedicated the church, now 
once more rebuilt, to St. Peter. Henceforth the anni- 
versary of this festival day was kept at Gloucester as if 
it were a Sunday. Three years later again (1242) the 
vaulting of the nave was finished by the monks them- 
selves, they doing the actual work and not employing 
stone-workers and setters. At the same time the prior 
undertook the erection of a tower to the southwest side 
of the church. 

To continue the history of the building: in 13 18 the 

[163] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

south aisle was groined. The interment of Edward II 
by the Abbot of Gloucester, after Malmesbury, Kings- 
wood, and Bristol had refused to find a tomb for the 
dead King, led to a great accession of revenue, and the 
buildings manifest the result. The Norman walls of the 
south aisle were cased with tracery in the period from 
1329 to 1337; the choir was vaulted and a range of stalls 
were added (1337-51); the lower part of the central 
tower; the casing of the north aisle with tracery; the 
south stalls; the presbytery with screens (1351-77). This 
ended the work of the fourteenth century upon the church 
fabric. In the period between 1420 and 1437, the west 
front, two western bays of the nave and the south porch 
were completed. The central tower was finished in the 
years 1459-60, and the wonderful lady chapel — a perfect 
poem in stone — was slowly built up during the forty 
years from 1457-98. The sedilia and the tiling were the 
last works executed by the monks (1513-34). The ex- 
tremely beautiful cloister with its exquisite fan tracery 
— the earliest in England — ^was built between 1351 
and 1412. 

During the fourteenth century many vestments, church 
service books and pieces of precious plate were bestowed 
upon the abbey. Of one abbot it is said that he obtained 
for the sacrist a large gilt chalice, an image of the Virgin 
in ivory, a crystal vessel with a silver foot for holding 
relics, several vestments and ecclesiastical ornaments, a 
volume of the legends of the saints, together with other 
books. Another abbot. Thomas Horton, who had been 

[164] 




CLOISTER AND LAVATORIUM, GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL 



GLOUCESTER 

sacrist, presented " many books, vestments, and vessels of 
silver, also four silver basins for the High Altar, two 
large ones for occasions v^hen the abbot celebrated Mass, 
and two small ones for the use of a priest when he should 
celebrate ; also two silver candlesticks for the same altar, 
and a gold chalice; also a silver vessel for holy water, 
with a silver aspergill; also a silver cross, gilt, to place 
on the altar when the abbot celebrated; also a silver pas- 
toral staff. There were also purchased two sets of vest- 
ments." 

\ In 1378 a parliament was held at Gloucester. It com- 
menced on October 22 and lasted till December 16. 
During the session the King remained sometimes at Glou- 
cester Abbey and sometimes in that of Tewkesbury. At 
all times during these two months the crowd was so 
great that the monks were put to no little inconvenience 
and expense. The detailed account which has come 
down to us says that at times the place " seemed more 
like a fair than a religious house," and it notes that the 
grass-plot of the cloister was so trodden by the visitors 
playing games that not a vestige of green could be seen 
when the session of Parliament came to an end. 

On the Sunday before the close of the parliament. High 
Mass was sung by the Abbot of Gloucester in the presence 
of the King, the two archbishops, twelve bishops and 
many noblemen. After Mass the King was entertained 
in the refectory at a magnificent repast, " set out with 
great splendour " by the community. 
The last abbot, William Malvern or Parker, was 

[167] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

elected on May 4, 15 15, and his community then con- 
sisted of thirty-four monks. The antiquary Browne 
Willis considers that probably he was got rid of by the 
royal commissioners before the suppression of the house. 
His name does not appear on the deed of surrender, which 
was signed on January 2, 1539, the religious being ex- 
pelled as soon as possible afterwards. One who deeply 
felt the sadness of the catastrophe which overwhelmed 
Gloucester, after its centuries of corporate life, has writ- 
ten thus of the last services held by the monks in their 
choir: " Having existed for more than eight centuries 
under different forms, in poverty and in wealth, in mean- 
ness and in magnificence, in misfortune and in success, 
it finally succumbed to the royal will ; the day came, and 
that a dreary winter day, when its last Mass was sung, its 
last censer waved, its last congregation bent in rapt and 
lowly adoration before the altar there; and doubtless as 
the last tones of that day's evensong died away in the 
vaulted roof, there were not wanting those who lingered 
in the solemn stillness of the old massive pile, and who, 
as the lights disappeared one by one, felt that for them 
there was now a void which could never be filled, because 
their old abbey, with its beautiful services, its frequent 
means of grace, its hospitality to strangers and its loving 
care of God's poor, had passed away like an early morn- 
ing dream and was gone for ever." 



[168] 



JERVAULX 

XN Wensleydale, between Bedale and Leyburn 
on the river Eure, stands all that remains 
of Jervaulx Abbey. The monastery was first 
founded at a place in the same neighbour- 
hood called Fors, or Dalegrange, in 1145 by a few 
monks of Savigny. Five years later the infant com- 
munity placed themselves under the Benedictine abbey 
of Byland in the same county of Yorkshire; and in 11 50 
an abbot and twelve monks were sent thence to colonise 
Dalegrange. The superior of the Savigny monks was a 
skilled physician, named Peter de Quinciaco, and why 
he and his companions had come to England at all was 
not understood even at the time. The founder of the 
new house was Alan, Count of Brittany, and being present 
when Peter de Quinciaco laid the foundation of the first 
settlement, he persuaded Roger de Mowbray, the founder 
of Byland, to emulate his example and assist the monks 
with further gifts of land and to help them to raise their 
first wooden oratory. 

A subsequent letter from Roger de Mowbray explains 
how it came to pass that the monks of Savigny after- 
wards abandoned the house they had thus begun. He 
had, he says, given them pasturage and the right to cut 
timber in his woods at Masham before his first visit to 

[ 169 ] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

the Holy Land. Not long after, Earl Alan, the chief 
founder, had gone to his possessions in Brittany, and vis- 
iting Savigny had told the abbot and monks there what 
Peter de Quinciaco was doing in England. The Earl 
then formally presented the whole of the property to 
the abbey of Savigny, which very unwillingly the abbot 
accepted, as he held that the new house should never 
have been begun without the consent of the mother house. 
Later on Peter de Quinciaco was continually writing 
from England or getting others to do so, begging for 
more monks to be sent over to him. But the Abbot of 
Savigny, remembering what had happened in other 
cases where monks had been sent from Savigny to Eng- 
land to begin new foundations, wrote to tell Peter and 
the few he had with him how foolishly he had acted in 
beginning the house at Wensleydale without previous con- 
sultation. The feelings of Peter were hurt, especially as 
his abbot had declared his desire to get rid of the new 
place altogether. In 1146 Roger, Abbot of Byland, had 
to go over to Savigny to the General Chapter, and Peter 
bethought himself of entrusting a letter to his abbot to 
Abbot Roger's keeping. 

The whole question of the new foundation at Wens- 
leydale was raised in the second session of this Chapter, 
and by the advice of the abbots of Quarre and Neath, 
who were also at the meeting, it was agreed that the Ab- 
bot of Savigny should give the incipient house of Fors 
to the Abbey of Byland, the youngest daughter house 
of Savigny in England, and the nearest to Wensleydale. 

[170] 




It. 



. § 



JERVAULX 

The Abbot of Quarre was instructed to carry out this 
judgment and to tell Peter and his companions that they 
might either remain under the obedience of the Abbot 
of Byland of return to Savigny. If the place, however, 
was on inquiry found to be unable to support a com- 
munity, then it should be retained merely to furnish an 
additional subsidy to the Abbot of Savigny. These alter- 
natives were put before Peter and his three companions, 
and after consideration and prayer they came before the 
Abbot of Quarre, and Peter acting as their spokesman 
said: " Holy Father of Quarre, we have now sufEciently 
debated the business that has brought you here. I wish 
in the first place to inform you that I and my two com- 
panions, to whom originally this place was specially given 
for God's service, have with all our bodies and souls 
promoted its welfare and increased in substance. Now, 
indeed, blessed be the Most High! we have five carucates 
of ploughland, forty cows with their calves, sixteen horses 
with their foals, given by the Earl of Brittany, five sows 
with their litters, three hundred sheep, thirty skins in tan- 
ning, and wax and oil more than enough, with a little 
help, for two years. We are certain that we can find 
bread and beer, cheese and butter for one year and we be- 
lieve that any abbot and a community of monks can begin 
on such promise and live till God provides more fully." 
After this Peter declared that if the Abbot of Byland 
would send a community and an abbot, with the promise 
that Fors should continue and be allowed to elect its own 
abbot in succession, he and his companions would gladly 

[ ^73 ] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

hand over all their possessions to them. This having 
been promised, Peter de Quinciaco with his two compan- 
ions and one lay brother renewed their profession to the 
Abbot of Byland; a second lay brother, not wishing to 
do this, returned at once to Savigny. 

One or two years later the Abbot of Savigny sent letters 
to the English houses in union with him ordering them 
in the name of Pope Eugenius to take the Cistercian Con- 
stitution. The promised community of monks had not 
at that time been sent from Byland, and as there seemed 
to be some doubt as to the position of the community at 
Fors under the changed circumstances, the Abbot of By- 
land in 1 149 went over to Savigny to consult the abbot. 
On his way back he remained at Clairvaulx to attend the 
General Chapter of the Cistercians, presided over by St. 
Bernard himself. He was received with great kindness, 
and St. Bernard ordered that the name of Fors should be 
inscribed on the list of Cistercian houses. The Abbot 
of Byland got home for November i and immediately 
set about the task of erecting the new foundation into an 
abbey. He ordered the cellarer of Byland to purchase 
a new bell for their own church and sent the old one 
to Jervaulx, and at the new year, 11 50, he went thither 
and spent a month in making all necessary preparations 
for the advent of the community. Returning, he ordered 
Peter and his companions to be at Byland for the first 
Sunday of Lent. On that day in the conventual chapter 
he appointed John de Kingston the first abbot of the new 
house, giving him as his community Peter and his two 

[174] 



JERVAULX 

companions and nine monks of Byland, who immediately 
made their obedience to their new abbot. On March 8, 
after receiving the usual blessing, the abbot and com- 
munity set out for their new home, where they were re- 
ceived at Dalegrange by the old benefactors of the place; 
and here the abbot appointed a prior, and Peter, who 
knew the place so well, his cellarer. The first years were 
times of difficulty and trial, and in the fifth year the house 
nearly came to an end through poverty, as the autumn was 
wet and it was impossible to gather in the harvest. The 
monks often discussed the propriety of returning to their 
old home at Byland, but in the end they were helped in 
their difficulty by the generosity of the abbot of this latter 
house and his community. Still the revenues of the abbey 
were not sufficient to support the inmates, and for a year 
five of the religious were compelled to return to Byland, 
and three others to seek shelter at Furness. 

Meanwhile Peter, now the cellarer, asked permission 
to go and interest Count Alan of Brittany in their difficul- 
ties. This he did, and the Count at once expressed his 
intention of materially aiding them when he next came 
over into Richmond. After a delay of two years he paid 
his promised visit and enjoyed the chase on his estates, 
where the only drawback to his sport was the number of 
wolves which infested the place. He then came to the 
abbey and promised liberal help. This, however, he was 
not destined to give in person, as he shortly after died. 
His son, Conan, however, took up the work and gave the 
community a large tract of land at East Witton, and great 

[ 175 ] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

pasturage on Wensleydale ; to this situation near Witton 
on the Eure the community moved and began to build, 
and from its situation on the river it first began to be 
known as Jervaulx. 

Of the subsequent history of the monastery little is 
known until the date of the final suppression. In the 
year of the Great Pestilence, 1349, the Abbot of Jervaulx 
died apparently of that disease, but there is no record of 
the extent of its ravages among the community. Probably 
Jervaulx at this time suffered the loss of many of its mem- 
bers, even if it was not depleted, as so many religious 
houses were, by the scourge. 

The last abbot, Adam Scdbar, alias Nelson, was elected 
in 1533. When the Northern Rising took place in 1537, 
Abbot Sedbar found himself implicated in the charges 
made against the heads of several abbeys in the north. 
The chief witness against him was one of the monks of 
Jervaulx, called Ninian Staveley, himself one of the 
leaders of the movement and a representative of the 
swashbuckler element among the insurgents. He was an 
adventurer who, having compromised himself, endeav- 
oured to save his own neck by turning an informant. 
According to his deposition it would appear that during 
the second rising the abbot had promised to come to the 
aid of the insurgents with all his monks; he had also, so 
said Staveley, begged Sir Thomas Percy " to come for- 
ward," and had sent to find out whether the Duke of 
Norfolk was advancing " with arms or no." 

On April 27, 1537, Abbot Sedbar was examined in the 

[176] 



JERVAULX 

Tower on these accusations. Being sworn, he admitted 
that about Michaelmas during the first rising there 
" came to the garth or court of the abbey '' some two or 
three hundred men. He knew nothing about it at the 
time, but hearing that their captains, Middleton and 
Staveley, were asking for him, " he conveyed himself by 
a back door " to a place called " Wilton Fell." He only 
had a boy with him, and he " bade his other servants get 
them every man to his own house and save their cattle 
and goods." He remained thus concealed for four days, 
only coming home at night; " and for all those days the 
commons wandered about the said house in the country 
round about." " At last, hearing that this examinate had 
said that there should be no servant of his ever after do 
him services, nor tenant dwell on no land of his, that 
should go with them, they therefore turned back to Jer- 
vaulx, and inquired for this examinate, and they were 
answered that he was not at home." And they compelled 
the monks to proceed to the election of another abbot in 
his place. The monks hesitating, the people said that if 
they did not proceed to an election within an hour they 
would burn the house about their ears. At length the 
monks sent to seek Abbot Sedbar, and finding him in a 
great crag on Wilton Fell, begged him to come home to 
prevent the destruction of the monastery. 

^^ Then for saving of the house this examinate come 
home, and, about the outer gate, he was torn from his 
horse and almost killed, they crying, * Down with the 
traitor 1 ' " After threatening to kill him they made him 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

come with them and kept him for some days before they 
allowed him to return to Jervaulx. He denied absolutely 
that he had given any aid whatever to them. They had 
indeed taken his servants with them, but he had refused 
to pay them their wages and " he never sent victuals unto 
them." The insurgents had tried to force him and his 
brethren to go with them, but he had refused and had fled 
to Bolton Castle to Lord Scrope and had remained there 
till the insurgents were "broken at Richmond." He 
further denied the special points which Staveley had 
suggested against him. 

At the same time the late Abbot of Fountains, William 
Thirsk, who was then living at Jervaulx and who was 
subsequently executed, was also examined as to his com- 
plicity in the rising. He declared that he remembered 
well how the insurgents tried to compel the Jervaulx 
brethren to join them. " Middleton and Staveley," he 
said, " came in harness to the abbot of Jervaulx, as he 
and this examinate were in his chamber, and bade them 
all, their brethren and servants on pain of death, go with 
them forthwith. And many other of the commons were 
in the hall and about the house. And he desired them 
instantly to suffer him and his brethren to be still, seeing 
that it was not meet that religious men should go about 
any such business." 

Although there was little enough in these depositions 
and examinations to implicate the Abbot of Jervaulx in 
the Northern insurrections, his ultimate fate was hardly 
doubtful from the first. He was hanged on June 2, 1537, 
at Tyburn, and by the new interpretation of the law of 

[178] 



JERVAULX 

attainder, the property of his abbey was held to be for- 
feited to the Crown by the constructive treason of its 
abbot. " The house of Jervaulx," wrote the King, with 
keen prevision, to the Earl of Sussex, " is in some danger 
of suppression by like offence as hath been committed at 
Whalley." The danger was not long delayed; for at the 
beginning of June Sir Arthur Darcy informed Crumwell 
that he had been at the suppression of Jervaulx. " The 
house within the gate," he writes, " is covered wholly with 
lead, and there is one of the fairest churches that I have 
seen, fair meadows and a river running by it, and a great 
domain." In fact he was so pleased with the place and its 
possibilities for breeding horses, " for surely the breed of 
Jervaulx for horses was the tried breed in the north," that 
he suggested it would make a good stable for the royal 
stud of mares. 

By the energy of Richard Bellasis before the middle of 
November what Darcy declares to have been " one of the 
fairest churches that I have seen " had been desecrated 
and demolished. Crumwell had ordered the lead to be 
pulled forthwith from the roof, and his agent wrote to say 
that this had been done and that it was melted into " pieces 
of half fodders; which lead amounteth to the number of 
eighteen score and five fodders, with thirty-four fodders 
and a half that was there before. The said lead cannot 
be conveyed nor carried until the next summer, for the 
ways in this country are so foul and deep that no carriage 
can pass in the winter. And as concerning the razing 
of the house if it be your lordship's pleasure I am minded 
to let it stand till the spring of the year, because the days 

[179] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

are now so short it would be double charges to do it now.'^ 
As to the bells he writes, " I cannot sell them above fifteen 
shilling the hundred weight," and he would gladly know 
whether he should take that price or send them up to 
London. By Michaelmas, 1537, the King's official is able 
to account for receipts from the attainted monastery of 
Jervaulx exceeding £600. The following year the same 
property paid into the exchequer £764 13s. 8d., but in 
that period more than £2,000 had been paid out of this 
and other attainted property in Yorkshire for the fees and 
payment of knights and squires on the marches of 
Scotland. 

\As in the case of other attainted monasteries like Whal- 
ley, Glastonbury, Colchester, or Reading the monks of 
Jervaulx did not receive any pension when they were 
turned out of their monastery. What became of them is 
for the most part unknown. In 1585 John Almond, one 
of them, died at the age of 76 in the Castle of Hull, having 
been in prison there since 1579. Two years previously 
Thomas Madde, another Cistercian of Jervaulx, died in 
prison at York. Of him it is said that in Henry VHI's 
days he " did take away and hide the head of one of his 
brethren of the same house, who suffered death in that 
he would not yield and consent to the royal supremacy." 
Afterwards he fled to Scotland "where he did remain 
unto the end of King Edward's reign. He, returning in 
Queen Mary's reign, did spend his time about Knares- 
borough in serving God according to his vocation and 
teaching of gentlemen's children and others." 

[180] 



ST. MARY'S, YORK 

OOWN by the river at York, and just inside the 
city walls, stood the Abbey of Our Lady St. 
Mary. Comparatively few remains now mark 
the site of what, before its destruction, was one 
of the most beautiful churches in mediaeval England, and 
" one of the most perfect examples of consummate archi- 
tecture in the world." The actual ruins are but few: the 
crumbling wall of the north aisle ; a tower-pier cut short 
at about half its height ; a mere fragment of the west wall ; 
and a few stones of the Chapter House still stand, but the 
enormous mass of fragments, many superbly carved, 
which have been of late gathered together, manifest even 
more clearly the beauty of that which was destroyed ia. 
the sixteenth century than what still remains standings 

The first beginnings of St. Mary's, York, must remaim 
uncertain. According to one account, the Earl of Rich- 
mond, in the time of William the Conqueror, founded 
a house for Benedictines in the suburbs of York. But all 
authorities appear to admit that William Rufus in 1088, 
finding the place too straitened for the reception of any 
convent of size, or projecting a larger one, with his owa 
hand opened the ground for the foundation of the more 
spacious building on the site where the ruins may now be 

[181] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

seen. His charters granting privileges and immunities 
naturally cause him to be regarded as the chief founder 
of the abbey. Other kings followed this example of 
iWilliam II and extended their patronage to the mon- 
astery, and many pious noblemen and others continually 
added to the original foundation, until St. Mary's became 
possessed of a revenue of £1,650 os. 7Jd., according to the 
Valor Ecclesiasticus of Henry VIII. 

The Abbey of St. Mary's, York, enjoyed he privilege 
of being one of the two mitred abbeys north of the Trent — 
the other being Selby — and the abbot was summoned to 
Parliament as a peer of the realm. It had an even, un- 
eventful history, disturbed only by quarrels as to rights 
and privileges with the town and with the Archbishop of 
York. The latter was bound by his official duty to make 
a formal visitation of the abbey once a year. He could 
also reform and correct any abuse he found in the house 
with the consent and counsel of the community and five 
or six of the canons of his cathedral. These visits were 
generally carried out with justice and in a spirit of fair 
dealing on both sides. To take an example: in 1344, 
William, the Archbishop of York, in making his visita- 
tion, raised the question of the right of the abbot and 
convent to take certain tithes and pensions from so many 
churches in his diocese. The religious at once produced 
papal Bulls and the grants of his predecessors in the See, 
allowing them to hold these impropriations; whereupon 
they were allowed by the prelate and declared good and 
sufficient. To take another instance : in one of these visita- 

[182] 



ST. MARY'S, YORK 

tions it became evident to the archbishop that for the 
regular observance and the avoidance of minor differ- 
ences in the community, it would be well that there should 
be a proper customal drawn up, as the book to which all 
could appeal. He consequently appointed a commission, 
consisting of two of the community and two canons of the 
cathedral. Together they composed, and the Archbishop 
approved, a consuetudinary of ceremonies and music to be 
observed at St. Mary's, which volume was afterwards 
kept in the abbot's chapel as the official ceremonial to be 
appealed to whenever it became necessary. 

The great church of St. Mary's, York, was cruciform, 
and each of the arms east and west of the central tower 
consisted of eight bays. It was rebuilt in the second half 
of the thirteenth century. Thus in 1270, Abbot Simeon de 
Warwick is said " to have commenced the new work of 
the choir," which entry in the records affords an indica- 
tion of the period when this fine specimen of thirteenth- 
century ecclesiastical architecture was under construction. 
The foundations of many of the domestic buildings can be 
easily traced; the Chapter House had three alleys, a very 
unusual feature; the parlour and slype or passage to the 
cemetery, are on the east side and formed the undercroft 
to the dormitory; the Norman arch of the gatehouse re- 
mains on the north. The lower guest house, consisting of 
a stone basement of the fourteenth century and a super- 
structure of the fifteenth, is near the river. 

One or two interesting little particulars in the history 
of St. Mary's appear in the annals of the Abbey of Meaux. 

[185] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

In I2IO, on the election of Hugh as abbot of the latter 
house, the convent found themselves unable to pay the 
fine of a thousand marks demanded by the King's officials, 
who thereupon seized some of their lands and sold them. 
By this alienation the monastery became so impoverished 
that the monks had to disperse. At this time most of the 
other Cistercian houses in the country were also too poor 
to receive their brethren of Meaux, and so the Abbot of 
St. Mary's, York, offered to give some of them shelter. 
The good relation between the two houses was somewhat 
disturbed in the middle of this same thirteenth century 
by a dispute about the fishing in Wathsand and Hornsey 
meres. Meaux had paid a rent to St. Mary's for the 
privilege, but ultimately there was an appeal to the law 
and, finally, to a combat between the champions of the 
two convents. Whilst this wager of battle was proceeding 
an agreement was come to by the parties. In further 
negotiations, however, they again fell out, and once more 
the settlement was referred to the two champions to fight 
out the cause to the end. A stay, however, was allowed 
in order that the Meaux claimants might have the part of 
the mere they held to be theirs marked out by stakes. Still 
no agreement could be come to, and the two champions 
commenced their wager of battle at York. They fought, 
says the chronicler, a mane usque ad vesperam — from 
morning till night — when the " athlete " of Meaux little 
by little lost his strength, and St. Mary's was adjudged to 
have the victory. 

From the same source we know that in 13 19, when 

[186] 



ST. MARY'S, YORK 

15,000 Scots attacked Yorkshire, the clerics of York were 
not backward in defending themselves. The Archbishop 
of York with his cross-bearer, the Bishop of Ely, the 
Chancellor, the Abbot of St. Mary's, the Dean of York 
and others were present at the battle of Milton on the 
Swale. The English suffered terribly, says the record, and 
" many priests and clerics " with the Mayor of York were 
killed and more than 3,000 men were drowned in trying 
to cross the river. The Abbot of St. Mary's, the Bishop 
of Ely and the Archbishop were saved by timely flight. 
The cross of the latter, however, was lost for some days. 

The last abbot, William Thornton or Dent, was ap- 
pointed in 1530. The royal visitation, prior to the Parlia- 
ment of 1536, was begun in Yorkshire in the January of 
that year, only a few weeks, indeed, before the meeting 
of the Houses in London. On January 13, Layton, one of 
the most diligent of the visitors, wrote to Crumwell from 
St. Mary's. "This day," he says, "we begin with St. 
Mary's Abbey, whereat we suppose to find much evil dis- 
position, both in the abbot and the convent, whereof, God 
willing, I shall certify you in my next letter." This ex- 
pectation hardly displays the judicial spirit; the writer 
expects to find what he has come to find, and will be only 
too pleased to be able to write his accusations in the next 
communication. Whatever may have been the result of 
this so-called examination, St. Mary's, York, did not come 
within the £200 a year limit of corruption fixed by the Act 
dissolving the lesser houses. As it was one of, what the 
preamble of that Act calls, " the Great and Solemn 

[187] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

Houses " of the realm, in it, according to Henry's declara- 
tion, religious life was right well kept and observed. 

A few years later, however, this good character did not 
avail, and finally the abbot and the convent gave way to 
the pressure exerted upon them and surrendered their 
house on November 26, 1539. The wrecking of the noble 
buildings at once began; the roofing of the church excited 
the cupidity of the spoilers, as it was estimated to be worth 
£800; the conventual buildings are said to have been 
blown up and the ground levelled, in order to erect on the 
site a royal palace for the northern parts. Immediately 
after Henry's death the greater portion of the royal palace 
was destroyed and what was left, together with the old 
abbot's lodgings, was turned into a dwelling for the 
" Lord President of the North," which was changed a 
great deal in the time of James I and Charles. 

During this time probably the roofless skeleton of the 
once glorious church still stood more or less intact. In 
1701, however, York Castle, standing much in need of 
reparation, found a ready quarry of stone in the walls of 
old St. Mary's. King George I also gracefully granted to 
Beverly Minster and St. Mary's, Beverly, as much stone 
from the ruin as they needed for their extensive repairs. 
Lastly, in the nineteenth century, to complete the destruc- 
tion, permission was granted to erect lime-kilns, into 
which for years went the worked stones which would now 
have been without price. It was not till 1827 that anyone 
thought of raising a protest against this vandalism. 

[188] 



MILTON 

^^^^HE Benedictine abbey of Milton in Dorsetshire 
M C^ was founded in the year 939 by King Athelstan. 
^^^^^ It was called variously Middleton, Milton 
Abbas or Milton, and was dedicated first to St. 
Mary and St. Michael the Archangel. To these patrons 
were afterwards added St. Sampson and St. Branwalader, 
as the church in the early days of its existence became 
possessed of considerable relics of these Saints. 

The abbey had its origin in the tragic death of Edwin, 
the brother of Athelstan, for which that king held himself 
in part blameworthy. When Athelstan began his reign 
in the year 924 he found himself the practical master of 
nearly all England, and within a few years of his accession 
he had also imposed his rule on Northumbria and Wales, 
and had driven the Britons of Cornwall westward from 
Exeter. Athelstan had three brothers, Edmund, Eadred, 
and Edwin. The two first succeeded him on the throne; 
the third was accused of conspiring against him. Athel- 
stan, acting impulsively on bad advice, expelled Edwin 
from England, putting him with his squire only on board 
a boat without either oars or sail, and setting him adrift 
at Dover. After being tossed about for some time on the 

[189] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

English seas, Edwin is said to have thrown himself over- 
board when near the Norman coast; but his squire, abid- 
ing in the ship, came safely to land near Ushant, with the 
body of the prince, which was carried to St. Bertin's Ab- 
bey and there buried. Athelstan was filled with remorse 
ior what he had done to bring about the death of his 
brother Edwin, and he determined in expiation to build 
a monastery for Benedictine monks at Milton, and to 
dedicate it to our Lady and St. Michael. Shortly after- 
w^ards he buried the body of his mother, Amphelisa, in 
this place, and continued during life to manifest his in- 
terest in the new foundation. 

Amongst other precious gifts the founder bestowed 
upon the Abbey of Milton were many relics of saints, etc., 
which he brought from Rome and Brittany. In the list of 
these we find " the arm and other bones of St. Sampson," 
and the arm of St. Branwalader the bishop. These and 
other relics, " at great cost and labour," he procured and 
placed in gilt shrines in the abbey church to obtain prayers 
for the soul of his brother Edwin and for that of his 
mother, who lay buried in the place he had founded. 

The connection between the abbey of Milton and that 
of St. Bertin is obvious. Edwin was buried at the latter 
monastery, and his name was connected by the founder 
with Milton. It is more than probable, therefore, that the 
monks from St. Bertin came over the sea and formed the 
first community settled at Milton. As in so many of 
the English monasteries, during the Danish invasion, the 
monastic form of life appears to have died out at Milton, 

[190] 



MILTON 

since the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the year 964 states 
that King Edgar replaced the secular canons, who were 
then living there, by monks. 

In 1309 a fire of great magnitude destroyed the church, 
which had been built in the twelfth century, and most of 
the domestic buildings. The church was subsequently re- 
built as we may see it now. It is 132 feet long by 61 feet; 
the tower is loi feet high, and the transepts are 107 feet 
across, the south wing having three bays and the north 
only two. The nave was apparently never rebuilt. The 
eastern portion of four bays is groined and retains its 
rood-loft, thirty-two stalls and a reredos of 1492. Of the 
domestic buildings only the refectory with rich oak ceil- 
ing and screen of the end of the fifteenth century is now 
in existence. 

William Middleton, the last abbot but one, who ruled 
his house from 148 1 till his resignation in 1525, did much 
to repair and beautify his house. He founded a free 
school also at Milton Abbas in the reign of Henry VII, 
and he reglazed the windows and otherwise ornamented 
the interior of the abbey church. On the reredos just re- 
ferred to there is an inscription asking for prayers for him- 
self and another monk who had collected the money to pay 
for the decoration. The abbot's rebus, a W with a crozier 
through it, and a mill on a tun, is frequently seen on the 
buildings. 

John Stephens, alias Bradley, a monk of Milton, was 
elected as William Middleton's successor in 1525, and on 
March 23, 1538, he was consecrated suffragan Bishop of 

[193] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

Shaftesbury. On March 21, the feast of their patron, St. 
Benedict, in the year 1539, the King's commissioners, John 
Tregonwell and John Smythe, came to Milton and re- 
ceived from the abbot and community the surrender of 
their monastery into the King's hands. The late Abbot 
Stephens, alias Bradley, Bishop of Shaftesbury, and 
twelve monks signed the surrender, and obtained pensions 
for their lives. 

The same John Tregonwell, on payment of £1,000 to 
the treasurer of the Court of Augmentations, obtained a 
grant of the whole property of Milton Abbey. It included 
the site of the entire monastery, the church and tower, the 
cemetery of the late monastery, all houses, buildings, 
barns, stables, granges, dovecots, gardens, orchards, pleas- 
ure grounds, ponds, stews, etc. As the whole was included 
in one grant, this for a time probably saved the buildings 
from destruction. Hutchins, the historian of Dorset, says 
that all the monastic buildings, except the hall and the 
church, were taken down only in 1771. Up to that time 
they stood near the church and formed a long square. 
Speaking of what they were before that time, the same 
writer says: "The north front was a very low ancient 
range of buildings with small narrow windows, perhaps 
the dormitory or cells for the monks. You entered by a 
large gate into a small court, whose old buildings were all 
very irregular in form and height, as indeed was the old 
fabric; under a window opposite the porch was a W with 
a crown over it and an M with a crozier through it, and 
between them 1529 ... At the east end of the court 

[ 194] 



MILTON 

was the old abbey kitchen pulled down in 1737. The roof 
was vaulted with stone and supported by a massy stone 
pillar, and it had two very large chimneys at each end. 
The western side seems to have been the abbot's lodgings. 
The cloisters were placed between the south end of the 
court and the lower part of the north aisle. The last re- 
mains appear to have been taken down in 1730. Under 
the garden wall, by the road that leads from the town to 
the abbey, was a foot-walk wall, called Ambry wall ; per- 
haps it was the way to the almonry where the poor re- 
ceived their alms of the abbey. Near this was the ancient 
abbey barn, which had two porches or threshing-floors 
projecting beyond it ; it was 250 feet long by 32 feet broad. 
It was all tiled, and much of it rebuilt in 175 1." 

One not uninteresting feature of the old monastery still 
survives in the long flight of steps from the present lawn 
up the hill-side to the chapel of St. Catherine. It was 
erected, no doubt, in imitation of the Scala Sancta in 
Rome, and the indulgence granted in the fifteenth cen- 
tury to such as would make the penitential exercise of 
mounting these steps is still recorded in an inscription 
over the door of the chapel at the top. Sir Frederick 
Treves thus describes the situation of " one of the most 
elegant minsters in England '' : 

" Milton Abbas is a model village grown old. Its story 
is very simple. When Joseph Damer, afterwards Earl 
of Dorchester, became possessed of the Milton estates, he 
found the ancient village squatted indecently near to the 
spot where he intended to build his mansion. With the 

[195] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

fine quarter-deck high-handedness of the eighteenth-cen- 
tury squire, he ordered the offensive object to be removed, 
and so it v^as. The old untidy hamlet (v^hich had sur- 
rounded the abbey) was entirely demolished as soon as the 
new Milton Abbas had been erected well out of sight 
of the great house. This was in 1786. 

" The quaint and all-of-one-pattern village is not the 
only surprising thing in this part of the country. From 
one end of the toy town a road leads into a wood, into 
whose shades it dives deeper and deeper, as does many a 
road in the children's story books. It comes in time to 
the edge of the coppice, where is a great grass valley 
ringed about by hills. The woods creep down to the foot 
of the slope so as to form an amphitheatre of trees. Here, 
on a lawn and amid the flower-gardens of a private man- 
sion, is a cathedral! No other building is in sight. It 
is a strange thing to meet with — a great grey house and 
a great grey church, standing side by side in a hollow 
in a wood. The place is a solitude, green and still, shut 
off from the world by a rustling ring of wooded hills. 
Such is Milton Abbey." 



[196] 



NETLEY 

ON the low ground bordering Southampton 
Water and almost hidden in a luxuriant growth 
of trees are the ruins of Netley Abbey. The 
place is not far from, is, indeed, almost a sub- 
urb now of the ever-growing port of Southampton. The 
ships that are perpetually passing down the water on their 
way to every part of the world, or are returning up it 
bearing the peoples and products of lands unheard of and 
undreamt of when Netley was at its prime, pass and repass 
this silent and ivy-grown memorial of a life, strange per- 
haps now, but which was very real indeed some centuries 
ago, when the great busy port of to-day was yet a small 
and unimportant harbour. 

Netley, otherwise called Lettley, Edwardstow or 
Laetus locus — happy place — was the home of Cistercian 
monks. It was a house of royal foundation, for Henry 
III established it in 1232 in honour of St. Mary and St. 
Edward. The first monks came from Beaulieu, the Cis- 
tercian abbey over the water in the New Forest, which, 
although it had been established so short a time, had yet 
increased already in numbers so much as to be able to 
send out a colony of brethren to Henry's new foundation. 
Netley was never, apparently, very prosperous, so far as 

[197] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

worldly wealth goes, and according to the taxation of 
Pope Nicholas the total amount of its temporalities was 
only £17. Although it subsequently received some further 
endowment from Edmund Earl of Cornwall at the time 
of the Dissolution in 1536, its clear income amounted only 
to £100 I2S. 8d. 

Netley, consequently, was in no sense an important mon- 
astery, and little or nothing is really known of its story, 
which was evidently the usual history of an observant 
house, in which its members, apparently never more nu- 
merous than twelve, devoted themselves to the duties of 
their state. Indeed, in one way this secluded spot has 
attracted probably more notice in late years than it did 
in the days of its prosperity. The very picturesqueness 
of the situation, the attractive beauty of the ruins with 
their setting of green trees and shrubs has caused it to be 
considered one of the typical ruined abbeys of England, 
and has attracted to it crowds of visitors from all parts of 
the world. It was Sir Horace Walpole who said of these 
moss-grown stones: " They are not ruins of Netley but 
of Paradise. Oh! the Purple Abbots! what a spot they 
had chosen to slumber in! " 

The beautiful church erected by these " Purple Ab- 
bots " measured 211 feet in length by 58 feet broad, with 
a transept 128 feet across. The nave was of eight bays, 
and had a rood-screen with two processional doors in it; 
the presbytery was of four bays and had its aisles. In 
either transept there were three altars, and the vaulting 
still remains in the eastern aisle of the south transept. 

[198] 




w 



NETLEY 

The cloister of the monastery was 1 14 feet square; on the 
east side the positions may still be marked of the sacristy 
below the library, the vestibule of the Chapter House, 
the slype or passage to the infirmary, the common house 
formerly vaulted in two alleys, and a small entry to the 
calefactory which contains a thirteenth-century fire-place. 
On the south side of the cloister was the refectory, the 
Early English door of which still remains. 

Netley was one of the smaller religious houses, and 
hence its destruction was decreed by Act of Parliament 
in 1536, which dissolved all houses having an income of 
less than £200 a year. It may be useful to explain what 
this bald statement means. In September, 1535, the King 
appointed commissioners to go round about the monas- 
teries and send in reports, with the intention of applying 
to Parliament to suppress some of them at least and to 
hand over their property to his Majesty. The chief mem- 
bers of the commission were Leyton, Legh, ApRice and 
London, and they went rapidly round the country, send- 
ing in letters, reports and official accusations against the 
good name of individuals called compertes, to Crumwell. 
It must have been some time in the late autumn of 1535 
that the visitors came to Netley, and judging from other 
cases it did not take them very long to draw up their 
report. We have not got it, but it may be taken for 
granted that it was sufficiently dreadful. 

Parliament met on February 4, 1536, and solely upon 
the King's declaration that the smaller religious houses 
were in a bad moral state, whilst, ^' thanks be to God," 

[ 201 ] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

the great and solemn abbeys were all that could be de- 
sired, Parliament fixed the pecuniary limit of moral de- 
linquency at £200 a year, and with indignation decreed 
the suppression of all religious houses with an income 
below that sum, giving the King all their corporate prop- 
erty. According to the preamble of the Act, it is certain 
that there was no inquiry worthy of the name, and that 
the measure was passed solely on the strength of the 
King's ^^ declaration " that he knew the charges against 
the smaller houses to be true. 

The money " measure of turpitude " fixed by the Act 
made it necessary as a preliminary to inquire what houses 
fell within this limit of £200 a year. Commissioners 
were consequently appointed to inquire and report. This 
time some at least of the commissioners were the gentry 
of the county; the rest were officials of the Augmentation 
Office, newly created in the expectation of the large sums 
likely to come to the crown by the operation of the Act 
of Suppression. Thus, for Hampshire on May 30, 1536, 
Sir John Worseley, John and George Poulet, and William 
Berners were directed to hold these inquiries, and this is 
their report about Netley: It " is a large building situate 
upon the rivage of the seas, to the King's subjects and 
strangers travelling the same seas great relief and com- 
fort." Although its income was under £200 a year, still 
the " seven priests " living there were " by report of good 
conversation." 

This favourable report from the gentry of the neigh- 
bourhood did not avail to save poor Netley from destruc- 

[ 202] 



NETLEY 

tion. In February, 1537, the blow fell. The abbot had 
been made to take the abbatial office at Beaulieu, and the 
community were actually without a head. The process 
of suppression was much the same in every case, and the 
work was not done in a day, the existing accounts showing 
that it took from six to ten weeks to conduct a dissolution. 
The chief commissioners paid two official visits during 
the progress of the work. On the first occasion they 
announced to the community and its dependents their 
impending doom, called for and defaced the seal — the 
symbol of corporate existence, without which nothing in 
the way of business could be transacted — desecrated the 
church, took possession of the best plate and church vest- 
ments " unto the King's use,'' measured the lead upon the 
roofs, counted the bells, and appraised the goods and 
chattels of the community. 

They then passed on to the scene of their next opera- 
tion, leaving behind them under-officials and workmen to 
carry out the designed destruction by stripping the roofs 
and pulling down the gutters and pipes, melting the lead 
into pigs, throwing down the bells and breaking them 
with sledge-hammers and packing the metal into barrels 
ready for the coming of the speculator. This was fol- 
lowed by the work of collecting the furniture and selling 
it by public auction or by private tender. When all this 
had been done, the commissioners returned to audit the 
accounts and to satisfy themselves that the work of de- 
struction had been accomplished to the King's content- 
ment. 

[ 205 ] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

An instance of this may be seen in the case of Netley. 
From the first arrival of the Royal Commissioners in 
February, 1537, to the final handing over the ruins to a 
keeper, the dissolution of the abbey took ten weeks. The 
accounts show that, first, plate to the value of £45 iis. 
was sent off to the King. The ornament of the beautiful 
church, when sold piecemeal, fetched £38 19s. 8d. A 
man named Michael Lister speculated in all the movables 
of the house, for which he paid a lump sum of £10 13s. 
4d. The same adventurer in partnership with another 
got all the cattle, corn, etc., for only a little over £100. 
When the wreckers had finished there were £21 worth 
of bell-metal and £40 worth of lead cast into " fodders " 
left on the ground to sell. It is not difficult to understand 
where the choir-stall wood and the timbers of the roof 
went to when the need to melt the lead was pressing; 
and judging from other instances, it would not be sur- 
prising to know that many a goodly missal and ancient 
choir-book used at Netley went into the flames of the fires 
lit in chancel and nave to keep the pot a-boiling. Per- 
haps even the flames may account for the precious volume 
noted by Leland in the library at Netley — Rhetorica 
Ciceronis. 

The Cistercian monks wHo lived at Netley were soon 
(disposed of by the commissioners. The abbot, as I have 
said, had been appointed to the abbey of Beaulieu, which 
it will be remembered was the mother house of Netley, 
so as the monks of the latter house had no wish to have 
" capacities " and leave the religious life, the most easy 

[206] 




o 

o 
o 

CQ 
< 

H 
2 



NETLEY 

way to get rid of them was to send them all to Beaulieu. 
We can, perhaps, imagine their feelings as they were 
shipped across the Southampton water on the first stage 
of their short journey to their new home. Probably from 
the boat, as they looked back over the waters in their 
passage, they were able to see the smoke and flames rising 
from their church and monastery, and by this token to 
know that the work of wrecking and destroying all that 
they had loved so well was in full progress. 

According to Browne Willis, the great destruction of 
the abbey church commenced about the period when the 
buildings were inhabited by the Earl of Huntingdon, 
who converted the nave or west end into a kitchen and 
offices. Soon after the beginning of the eighteenth cen- 
tury the materials of the whole fabric were sold to a Mr. 
Walter Taylor, a builder of Southampton, but an acci- 
dent which soon after befell Mr. Taylor saved the ruins. 
At this time it would appear that the church remained in 
an almost perfect condition, although the transept had 
been used as a stable and floors had been introduced at 
various levels in the building. 

Later on, the place passed into the possession of Sir 
Nathaniel Holland, whose lady, desiring to have in her 
park " an elegant ruin," according to the taste of the 
eighteenth century, removed the entire north transept and 
erected it near her house for that purpose. In spite of 
everything, however, Netley remains one of the most fas- 
cinating monastic monuments in the country. 

[ 209 ] 



PERSHORE 

OF the five great Worcestershire abbeys, Glou- 
cester and Worcester are placed on the Severn, 
Pershore and Evesham on the Avon, and 
Tewkesbury on the junction of the two rivers. 
Pershore stands in the garden-like county of Worcester- 
shire midway between Evesham and Worcester. The 
foundation of Pershore as a monastery is somewhat un- 
certain. It would seem, however, that about the year 
682, Oswald, a nephew of Ethelred, King of Mercia, es- 
tablished there a house of monks. During the dark times 
of the Danish invasions nothing is known about Pershore; 
but some time before 975, St. Oswald, with the help of 
King Edgar, evidently re-established the monks in their 
old place, which, according to some, here as elsewhere, 
was occupied by seculars. 

Edgar's charter, issued apparently about 972, dedicates 
the church and monastery of Pershore to the " Mother 
of our Lord, Mary ever a Virgin, to St. Peter, chief of 
the Apostles, and his fellow-apostle, Paul." The monks 
dwelling there were to have the right of electing their 
abbot after the death of the then Abbot Fulbert, who 
had been appointed to begin the monastery; and, as far as 

[210] 



PERSHORE 

possible, Edgar restored to them the lands which had 
been taken from them in the past troubles. The church 
and domestic buildings were at this time made of wood 
and were more than once destroyed by fire. An entry 
in an old manuscript states that in 976 a " consul nequis- 
simus," named iElfer, " wickedly destroyed the church 
of Pershore and many other churches which King Edgar 
and Ethelwold had built in England." It was again 
burnt down in about the year 1000, and after two years 
occupied in rebuilding, it was, according to the chronicle, 
once more used for monastic divine services in 1002. 

In this early period, before the Conquest, and probably 
about the time of Edgar, Pershore had another bene- 
factor called Alwald, Earl Wada, " who in honour of the 
Mother of God restored the monastery of Pershore which 
had been destroyed by wicked and unbelieving men. 
Having given £100 to Ailgira — probably Eadgyfa — Ab- 
bess of Winchester, she presented him with relics of the 
Holy Virgin Eadburga and he translated them to Per- 
shore, placing them with great devotion in a golden shrine 
beautifully worked." Here, says the chronicler, the sanc- 
tity of the saint was manifested by so many miracles that 
within a year a hundred sick people had been cured of 
various infirmities. In this way, " more than in Win- 
chester, where the greater part of her body rested," the 
Saint magnified her power. In process of time the name 
of St. Eadburga was added to the dedication title of Per- 
shore. 

Between the re-establishment of the abbey by King 

[213] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

Edgar, about 972, and the survey of Doomsday by the 
Conqueror, a century later, it seems to have lost in some 
way or other a considerable portion of its possessions. In 
the Conqueror's survey many of the places in Worcester- 
shire given to Pershore by the charter of King Edgar are 
found entered among the Worcestershire possessions of 
Westminster Abbey. William of Malmesbury expressly 
states that it lost fully half its property; part, he says, 
had been taken by the great, part lost by the neglect of the 
monks, but the greatest part of all had been bestowed 
by King Edward the Confessor and King William on 
Westminster. Even some property in Pershore itself had 
been granted to the new foundation. At this time the 
revenue of the abbey appears to have amounted to only 
£79, only two-thirds of what it was during the reign of 
the Confessor. King John by his charter secured certain 
lands and possessions to the Abbey of Pershore, now 
called the church of "St. Mary and St. Eadburga the 
virgin." 

In 1223, on St. Urban's day, the abbey was burnt a 
second time. The place was undergoing some repairs, 
and apparently in the usual way, through the careless- 
ness of some workmen, the fire originated which consumed 
the entire monastery. The rebuilding was taken in hand 
immediately, but the church was not consecrated till 1239- 
Half a century later, in 1288, a third fire involved not 
only the abbey but most of the town. It began in the 
abbey bakehouse or brewery and the bell tower of the 
church caught, after which it quickly spread and con- 

[214] 



PERSHORE 

sumed the entire church and more than forty houses of 
the town. 

In this last fire, probably, the register of the estates 
and the " evidences " of the privileges and customs of 
the monastery were consumed. The loss was serious, and 
in consequence a commission to ascertain the contents 
of the lost papers was appointed by the crown and wit- 
nesses were examined on the subject. The Prior Walter 
was able to produce certain copies of many of the docu- 
ments, which had been saved, and which he testified ex- 
actly represented the originals, as he had frequently 
examined both together. In proof of exemption from the 
ordinary jurisdiction of the Bishop of Worcester, he said 
he remembered on one occasion, when Bishop Manger 
came with the intention of ordaining clerics in their 
church, they produced their privilege, and he was obliged 
to go to the chapel of St. Andrew, which was in the 
monks' cemetery. Besides the prior, fifteen other monks 
were examined in this commission. Four of them are 
described as " old men," one, not among the " senes," 
claims to have been constantly a monk in the cloisters 
of Evesham during sixty years, and three others had been 
monks more than thirty years. 

The choir of the church, destroyed on St. Urban's day, 
1223, was built up by Abbot Gervaise and vaulted by his 
successor. The nave has been destroyed with the excep- 
tion of the thirteenth-century door to the cloisters. The 
fine decorated lantern tower, rising 36 feet above the roof, 
was built in 1331. St. Eadburga's chapel still remains; 

[215] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

the eastern arm above the transepts measures 102 feet, and 
is now used as the church. The transepts which are gone 
were 160 feet across, and the nave, which anciently served 
as the parish church, was 180 feet long by 60 feet broad. 
The entire length of the church was probably 250 feet. 

The last abbot was John Stonewell or Stonywell, who 
was elected in 1527. Wood says that he was a native of 
Stonywell in Staffordshire, and " being much addicted to 
learning and religion," he was sent as a youth to Per- 
shore. From his monastery he was sent to Gloucester 
College at Oxford, where the monks of Pershore had 
their own lodging for students. Later on he became 
prior of Gloucester College, took his degree of Doctor 
in Divinity and was abbot of his monastery. Later again 
he became a suffragan bishop under the title of Episcopus 
Poletensis, continuing still to act as abbot of Pershore. 
He died in 1553 and was buried according to his will in 
a chapel he had built in the parish church of Longdon. 
For the use of this chapel and the parishioners of Long- 
don he left all his books, his two chalices, his cruets, holy 
water stock, vestments, albs, altar cloths and other things 
belonging to his private chapel at Longdon. 

Although the name of John Stonewell appears on the 
pension lists as superior, there is some difficulty in under- 
standing exactly who was the abbot at the last. In the 
Crumwell letters are six or seven from a John Poleton, 
who signs himself Abbot of Pershore. This possibly may 
have been his signature as Bishop Poletensis, and the same 
appears in the abbot's signature in 1534. -^^ writes about 

[216] 



PERSHORE 

the pension to be paid to his predecessor, sends Crum- 
well a present of £io, and certainly had something to say 
at the Dissolution, since he writes: "through the action 
of my predecessor and three others the community are 
not content with their present stipend, and grumble con- 
stantly ^ at this visitation.' Hence I shall be glad if you 
will assign to each priest yearly £6 13s. 4d., to each young 
monk £5 and to the prior £10, for their whole ^ finding 
stipend.' " The writer also says that he had already told 
Dr. Layton of his willingness to resign his house and 
states that the King's letters had ordered him to pay at 
once £93 15s. to his " antecessor." 

At this time when every item of information or accusa- 
tion was eagerly listened to by the crown agents, any dis- 
contented monk knew that he might, perhaps, " make for 
himself " by a timely complaint in the right quarter. In 
this way there were depositions laid against the abbot 
of Pershore for speaking against the King's proceedings. 
Another complaint, couched in more general terms, was 
sent up to Crumwell by one of the Pershore community, 
Richard Beerly, who wished to leave the monastery. 
He did not believe that what was called St. Benet's rule 
was anything more than vain superstition. The monks, 
according to him, were a thoroughly bad lot in every way; 
they neglected their choir duties " with many other vices 
they use, which I have no leisure now to express. Also 
abbots, monks, priests do little or nothing to put out of 
books the bishop of Rome's name, for I myself do know 
in divers books where his name and his usurped power 

[217] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

upon us is." Richard Beerly, the writer of the above 
letter, signed the acknowledgment of the Royal Suprem- 
acy as the last of the community, and as his name does 
not appear on the pension document at all, no doubt he 
was allowed to have his way and leave the monastery. 

The suppression of Pershore was probably carried out 
in 1539. No deed of surrender appears in the archives 
of the Record OfBce or is to be found on the Close Rolls, 
but it is probable that the actual surrender would have 
taken place about the same time as that of the neighbour- 
in monastery of Evesham, which was in November, 1539. 
The ministers' accounts show that from the various sales 
of the goods, etc., of Pershore, the royal agents received 
one year £541 2S. 8Jd., and the second year £71 is. 
The portion of the church that still exists was saved by 
the inhabitants of the town, who paid £400 for it to the 
crown. 



[218] 




RIEVAULX 

'EW views are more fascinating than that of the 
ruins of Rievaulx seen from the great grass ter- 
race above them and through the woods which 
clothe the hillside to the east and north. The 
abbey lies in a hollow on the bank of the little river Rie in 
Yorkshire, just where three valleys meet, and the Rie 
draws off two other streams with it and carries them to- 
gether towards the larger Derwent. Though now there is 
a sense of peace and security in the valley of Rhidal, even 
whilst the gaunt skeleton of the church lifts its roofless 
gables and broken pillars to the heavens, it is quite pos- 
sible to picture the place before the civilising presence 
of the white monks had set its mark upon hollow and 
hill, as the locus horroris et vastcB solitudinis, the " awe- 
inspiring and solitary place," it is described to be in the 
earliest account we have of it. 

In 1 123 St. Bernard sent some of his monks of the Cis- 
tercian Order from Clairvaux to England to make a foun- 
dation in this place. Three years later Walter Espec, 
a man of good position, gave the Cistercians as their first 
home in Yorkshire a place called Blackmore, in the woods 
not far from Hemelac, now called Helmesley. There in 

[221] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

1 131 they began their religious life, calling the new foun- 
dation " Our Lady of Rievaulx." In 1 136 the same gen- 
erous benefactor established the Cistercian house of War- 
don in Bedfordshire, and then in 1 150, giving up his prop- 
erty to his children, he retired to Rievaulx and lived there 
with the monks for two years before his death in 1152. 

The first abbot of Rievaulx was a monk named 
William, one of St. Bernard's own disciples. He imme- 
diately commenced the building of the monastery, and 
devoted himself at the same time to the training of his 
monks. In the Cistercian annals this abbot is specially 
noted for the holiness of his life; and in one list of the 
early Cistercians he is even called by the name of the 
" Blessed William." Abbot William was succeeded in 
1 1 50 by his more celebrated disciple, St. -Spired, one of 
the first Englishmen to join the community after its com- 
ing to settle at Rievaulx. Very early in his religious 
career iElred was appointed to take charge of the novices, 
and later was sent out in charge of a colony from Rie- 
vaulx which was to establish itself at Revesby or Rewesby, 
in Lincolnshire. iElred was a writer of considerable re- 
pute, both as an historian and as a master of the spiritual 
life. The history of "The Battle of the Standard" is 
known only through his description, and the Genealogia 
Regum Anglorum was composed to instruct Prince 
Henry, afterwards King Henry II, in the history of the 
Saxon Kings. St. iElred suffered all his life from ill- 
health, and for years before he died he was hardly ever 
free from pain. One picture we get of him whilst Abbot 

[ 222 ] 



RIEVAULX 

of Rievaulx, a short time before his death, is that of a 
monk wrapped in a cloak, sitting on a mat spread on the 
floor before the fire. He is racked with pain, and so 
doubled up that his head rests almost between his knees. 

Besides Revesby, of which mention has already been 
made, Rievaulx established the more celebrated house of 
Melrose, in Scotland. It is said that it was the beauty 
of the life led at Rievaulx that induced some of the monks 
of St. Mary's, York, to yearn for the same and to leave 
their own cloister for Fountains in search for it. 

The church is 343 feet long, and on account of the situ- 
ation of the ground between the steep hill and the river 
Rie, it has been set north and south. The choir and chan- 
cel occupy seven bays; the nave is 166 feet long and the 
crossing arch 70 feet high. The transepts are partly 
Norman, the upper portion being Early English. The 
refectory, built over some cellarage, shows the remains 
of a reading pulpit, and there are vestiges more or less 
distinct of the dormitory and other domestic buildings. 

The story of Rievaulx is that of a house which went on 
in the even tenor of its Cistercian ways. No difficulty 
other than occasional differences as to tithes and pensions 
and taxes appears to have troubled the calm serenity 
of the monks in their peaceful valley on the banks of the 
Rie. It was by no means, however, an idle or useless 
life that they led in their seclusion, although perhaps, 
with the exception of Abbot ^Ired, they have left us but 
little evidence of their literary activity. Their daily and 
nightly round of service would probably prove more than 

[ 225 ] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

sufficient for most of us who live in the twentieth cen- 
tury. To rise at midnight, night after night; to take part 
for a couple of hours of the night, winter and summer, 
year in, year out, in the solemn chanting in the church; 
then to return to bed, to make up the night's rest that had 
been broken, only to be roused once more in the very 
early morning to continue the round of God's praises, 
with practically little cessation, till the midday meal; to 
sit in the unwarmed cloister and study; to read books not 
of choice but those appointed; to labour for a time for 
exercise and recreation in the garden or in the field; to 
have long fasts and abstinences; to keep hours of silence; 
and to do all these things, not as an experiment, or for a 
day or a week, but for a lifetime, required a real calling 
and real enthusiasm. It was a life that could only be 
lived at all in virtue of the help derived from the thought 
that God had given the soul His personal summons to 
serve Him in this way. We may — no doubt many in 
these days will — consider such a life very unnecessary and 
very useless ; but at least we may recognise that it was not 
a slothful life nor yet an idle one, and that years and cen- 
turies of such a life were passed without any record ex- 
cept that entered in the Book of Life. It is only the 
trouble, the difficulty and the scandal that has found its 
way into the pages of Register or chronicle; the daily 
routine of duty is passed by without a notice or com- 
ment. 

The last abbot of Rievaulx was Richard Blyton, ap- 
pointed when the clouds which portended the storm that 

[226] 




RIEVAULX ABBEY FROM THE TERRACE 



RIEVAULX 

overwhelmed the religious houses in the sixteenth century 
were already gathering. There were, indeed, reports 
and prophecies about the impending catastrophe rife in 
the neighbourhood of Rievaulx, and men were thought to 
be casting envious eyes upon the property of the monks 
long before the end came. The following lines were 
actually quoted in the abbey before the dissolution: 

Two men came riding over Hackney way, 
The one on a black horse, the other on a grey; 
The one unto the other did say 
Look yonder stood Revess, that fair abbay. 

To these lines in the manuscript is appended the follow- 
ing note : " Henry Cawton, a monk, some time of Reves 
abbey in Yorkshire, affirmed that he had often read this in 
a manuscript belonging to that abbey, containing many 
prophecies, and was extant there before the Dissolution. 
But when he or any other of his fellows read it, they 
used to throw away the book in anger, as thinking it im- 
possible ever to come to pass." Henry Cawton, alias 
Thirsk, was one of the monks who signed the deed of sur- 
render on December 3, 1539. 

There had been considerable difficulty with the pre- 
vious abbot, probably about 1535, in regard to his refusal 
to carry out the King's desires. He had shown himself 
very independent, had pleaded exemption from such visi- 
tations as Henry proposed, and even the Abbot of Foun- 
tains, who was called in to try and bring him to a better 
mind, failed to do so. He gave a protest in Latin, and 

[ 229 ] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

said that if the King had jurisdiction the letters were 
evidently obtained by fraud and surreptitiously, and "was 
from Mr. Crumwell only." Of course this was sufficient; 
it was impossible to tolerate such " dissolute living," since 
*^ this rebellious mind at this time is so radicate, not only 
in him, but also in many of the religious." 

All this and much more one of Crumwell's agents 
writes to his master. The sequel does not appear, but the 
abbot, William Helmesly, who had held office since 15 13, 
was somehow compelled to resign and Richard Blyton 
was appointed in his stead. William Helmesly does not 
admit that his act was rightly called a " resignation," and 
in a letter, addressed to Crumwell himself, he speaks of 
his having been " deposed." A difficulty subsequently 
rose about the pension that was promised him, and the 
abbots of Fountains and Byland were appointed by 
Crumwell to determine the amount. This they did at 
Ripon, where, having discussed the matter with the actual 
abbot and his predecessor, they fixed the pension at £44 
a year. 

The commissioners to take surrenders of religious 
houses arrived in Yorkshire at the beginning of Decem- 
t^c^j 1539- Their names were George Lawson, Richard 
Bellassis, William Blithman and James Rokeby. On the 
fifteenth of that month they wrote to Crumwell from 
York that they had " quietly taken the surrrender," and 
dissolved five or six abbeys and friaries and had arranged 
about the safe custody of the lead and bells. One of the 
houses mentioned was Rievaulx, which these agents had 

[230] 



RIEVAULX 

reached from Byland on December 3, 1539. The ac- 
counts of these officials subsequently presented to the 
Augmentation Office afford us some particulars. The 
goods of the abbey when sold produced £281 5s. 4d. ; the 
lead from the roofs and gutters had been melted down to 
140 fodders, and there were five bells, whether broken 
up or still whole is not stated. The plate of the abbey 
is set down as 522 ounces, including ten chalices weighing 
185 ounces. Of these items the plate had been sent up to 
London, and also £181 5s. 4d. had been paid to the royal 
treasury. Pensions had been promised to the abbot and 
twenty-three religious, and at the time of the account 
these had been paid. The abbot also had been given the 
debts due to the house. In a subsequent pension list the 
name of the late abbot is found set down as having a 
claim for his promised pension of £44. 

The account likewise mentions that at Rievaulx there 
were ninety-one retainers of all kinds, besides the 
" kitchen-boy," who received two shillings on his dis- 
missal, Thomas the plumber and six chorister boys, who* 
got three shillings each. When the Dissolution had beeni 
effected, the ruins were left to decay. The very seclusiom 
of the spot, perhaps, has served to preserve the ruira 
better than we might have expected after three and a half 
centuries of neglect. Even fallen, moss-grown and 
damp-stained as it is, the choir of Rievaulx church re- 
mains one of the most glorious works of English 
mediaeval architecture. 

[ 233 ] 




ROMSEY 

OMSEY was an ancient abbey of nuns pleasantly 
placed on the banks of the Test in Hampshire. 
At one time, no doubt, the ground round about 
was marshy, and the church and domestic build- 
ings were set on an island or raised ground in the sur- 
rounding low-lying country, always of a swampy nature, 
and at times, when the Test overstepped its bounds, prac- 
tically impassable. This, at least, is what we should ex- 
pect from the nature of the situation as we survey it to- 
day, and indeed it is what the name of Romsey, or " Reed 
Island," would convey to us. 

The abbey was Benedictine, and, according to some 
authorities, was founded by a Saxon nobleman named 
Ethelwold in the reign of King Edward the Elder for 
a community of nuns placed under the care of Elfleda, 
Ethelwold's daughter. We are on surer ground when 
we come to the reign of King Edgar. In 967 the monas- 
tery, which had previously been destroyed, was rebuilt, 
and the new community were placed under the Abbess 
Merwenna. In the same year the church was finished 
and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and St. Elfleda at 
Whitsuntide in the King's presence. Peter Langtoft, 

[234] 




X 
H 
D 
O 
c/) 

X 
h 

O 

CQ 
< 

D 
< 
> 

s 



ROMSEY 

writing in the fourteenth century, whilst praising Edgar 
because: 

MIkille he wirschipped God and served our Lady 
The abbey of Rumsaye he feffed richly, 

says that he placed there a hundred nuns, and though 
this may have been at the time somewhat of a poetical 
license, at the time he wrote a hundred may well have 
been the number of the religious in the cloister of Rom- 
sey, and we know that at one election of an abbess about 
this period ninety nuns gave their votes. 

Before the end of the tenth century it seems most prob- 
able that Romsey suffered, if not extinction, at least great 
destruction at the hands of the Danes. In the Anglo- 
Saxon Chronicle under the year 994 we read that Olaf 
and Sweyn came to London on September 8 with ninety- 
four ships. They were repulsed and sailed down the 
Thames, " and then they went thence and wrought the 
greatest evil that ever any army could do, in burning and 
in harrying and in manslayings, as well by the sea coast 
as in Essex and in Kent and in Sussex and in Hampshire, 
etc., and all the army then came to Southampton, and 
there took winter quarters." With the enemy so near to 
Romsey as Southampton, it is hardly likely that the con- 
vent would have escaped pillage at least and probably 
destruction. It is possible to conjecture that the nuns 
may have fled for protection to Winchester. 

The absence of any chronicle of Romsey makes it im- 

[ 237 I 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

possible to follow the fortunes of the house in any detail. 
In 1085 the Saxon Chronicle notes that Christina, the 
sister of Edgar Atheling, took the veil among the nuns 
here. In process of time her niece — the daughter of her 
sister Margaret — St. Margaret of Scotland, who had mar- 
ried Malcolm III, is said to have confided to the care of 
the nuns of Romsey her daughter Matilda, afterwards 
known as Queen Maud the Good of England. In the 
twelfth century Mary, the only living daughter of King 
Stephen, became a nun in this abbey and in process of 
time abbess. She subsequently caused great scandal 
throughout England by leaving her convent and secretly 
marrying Matthew, Earl of Boulogne and Mortaigne. 
As she was under the vow of chastity by the laws of the 
church her marriage was null and void, and she was com- 
pelled to return to her convent. The two daughters of 
the union were subsequently legitimated by Parliament 
in 1 189. 

The Great Pestilence of 1349 wrought great havoc in 
the community of Romsey. At the election of Jean 
Jacke as abbess in 1333 ninety nuns were present and re- 
corded their votes. Sixteen years later she died, in 1349, 
and a successor was elected in the person of Joan Gervays, 
who received the royal assent on May 7. We have no 
detailed account of the death-roll in the convent, but we 
may judge how terrible must have been the losses by the 
fact that the number of the nuns is found to have been 
reduced to eighteen in 1478 and they never rose above 
twenty-five until their final suppression. In fact, if it 

[238] 



ROMSEY 

had not been that the nuns of the Winchester diocese found 
in Bishop Edyndon, during the terrible scourge of the 
fourteenth century and after, a special patron, it is more 
than probable that Romsey as well as many other convents 
would have been unable to recover the disaster. In a 
document addressed to the bishop when the danger was 
passed they say that " he counted it a pious and pleasing 
thing mercifully to come to their assistance when over- 
whelmed by poverty, and in days when evil-doing was on 
the increase and the world was growing worse, and they 
were compelled by necessity to beg in secret. It was at 
such a time that the same father with the eye of com- 
passion, seeing that from the beginning the monastery 
was slenderly provided for with land and possessions 
and that now we and our house, by the barrenness of our 
land, by the destruction of our woods, and by the diminu- 
tion or taking away from the monastery of due and ap- 
pointed rents, because of the dearth of tenants carried off 
by the unheard-of and unwonted pestilence come to our 
assistance to avert our entire undoing." 

The church as it now stands measures 240 feet in 
length, the presbytery 52 feet and the transept 121 feet; 
the low central tower is about 100 feet high. The whole 
structure is mainly Norman, although the western bays 
of the nave are Early English and the eastern bays as high 
as the clerestory. The choir extends into the central 
crossing and the transepts have eastern apsidal chapels. 
The domestic buildings have entirely disappeared and 
perhaps the only relic of the whole is the interesting 

[241] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

carved ancient crucifix, which stood outside the door 
leading from the cloister to the church at the place where 
the nuns used to assemble before their choir duties. 

In 1523 the last abbess of Romsey was elected in the 
person of Elizabeth Ryprose, and in the Valor Ecclesi- 
asticus of Henry VHI the net value of the possessions is 
given as just over £393 a year. The convent did not, 
therefore, come under the provisions of the act suppress- 
ing the lesser religious houses in 1536. The ultimate 
fate of the place affords an example of the personal pres- 
sure that was exerted by the King's agents on the superiors 
of the greater abbeys to obtain their surrender into the 
King's hands. On the eve of its dissolution Romsey main- 
tained a community of twenty-five nuns. They appear 
to have been unwilling to fall in with the King's views 
and by abandoning their religious life to allow their 
property to pass into Henry's possession. The commu- 
nity shows great vitality and about a third of its members 
had made their religious profession after July 28, 1534. 
One of these was Catherine, youngest daughter of Sir 
Nicholas Wadham, at that time Governor of the Isle 
of Wight, whose elder sister Jane had been for some 
years a professed nun in the abbey. At this time the 
convent steward was a certain John Foster, who had 
a house at Raddesley near Romsey. His position would 
have given him accurate information as to the extent and 
value of the Romsey property, and his necessary inter- 
course would have afforded him the means of bringing 
influence to bear upon the nuns. It is not, therefore, sur- 

[ 242 ] 




ROMSEY abbey: THE NUNS DOORWAY 



ROMSEY 

prising to find that Foster was selected by the royal agent 
for this service and that he sounded the nuns as to their 
dispositions to do Henry's will and let him have their 
property. 

In the report John Foster sent to Sir William Seymour, 
he says : ^^ According to your request I herein signify and 
subscribe unto you the state of the house of Romsey — 
First you shall understand that the house is out of debt; 
also the plate and jewels are worth £300 and more; Six 
bells are worth £100 at least; also the church is a great 
sumptuous thing all free stone and covered with lead, 
which as I esteem it, is worth £300 or £400 or rather 
better." Foster then goes on to give particulars of the 
rents coming to the house from the lands, on some at 
least of which Seymour had set his heart. He then con- 
cludes: "And where you wrote, that I should ascertain 
you whether I thought that the abbess with the rest of the 
nuns would be content to surrender up their house: the 
truth is I do perceive throughout the motion that your 
kinswomen and other of your friends made for you, that 
they would be content at all times to do you any pleasure 
they may. But I perceive they would be loath to trust 
to the Commissioners' gentlemen, for they hear say that 
other houses have been straightly handled." 

The kinswomen of Seymour in the convent by whom 
Foster helped to accomplish the voluntary surrender were 
Catherine Wadham, subprioress, her sister, and Eliza- 
beth Hill. Apparently, however, his design was unsuc- 
cessful, for no surrender deed of the abbey is extant, 

[ 245 ] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

neither are the names of either the abbess or her nuns 
found on the pension lists. 

The year 1539 saw the end of the corporate existence 
of the convent of Romsey. The destruction of the domes- 
tic buildings at once commenced, and if to-day the " great 
sumptuous church," as John Foster called it, is still stand- 
ing, we owe it not to any regard for it on the part of the 
authorities, but to a purchase made on February 20, 1545, 
by the inhabitants of the town. The deed shows that 
they paid £100 for the pile, and as this sum is much below 
the estimate of John Foster, it is possible that in the five 
intervening years the place may have been much despoiled 
and defaced. 



[246] 




SHERBORNE 

HERBORNE ABBEY in Dorset was an- 
ciently the seat of a bishop. According to our 
historians, about the year 705 the west Saxon 
See of Dorchester was divided, and whilst 
Bishop Daniel kept his chair at Winchester, St. Aldhelm 
became first bishop of the See of Sherborne, which com- 
prised the counties of Wilts, Dorset, Berks, Somerset, 
Devon and Cornwall. Sherborne itself is described by 
William of Malmesbury as having been a very insig- 
nificant town, and he expresses his astonishment at its 
having remained for so long a time a Cathedral city. 
The erection of other Sees round about in the tenth cen- 
tury, and the division of the diocese territorially finally 
left Sherborne with only the county of Dorset as its share 
of what had been a most extensive diocese. As an episco- 
pal seat it came to an end in 1078 when, having been 
united in 1058 with Ramsbury by Bishop Herman, it was 
finally merged into the new diocese of Salisbury. 

The first bishop of Sherborne, St. Aldhelm, was an 
interesting personality. It is claimed for him that he 
was the first Englishman who wrote in Latin, and he 
speaks of himself as having been the first to introduce 

[247] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

poetry into the country. William of Malmesbury in re- 
lating his life describes the people of this part of the coun- 
try in Aldhelm's time as half barbarians. It was difficult 
to instruct them as they were little disposed to come to 
church or to listen to discourses on religion. In order, 
therefore, to attract them, the bishop, who was a musician 
of no mean parts, used to place himself on a bridge with 
an instrument and sing to the passersby ballads of his 
own composition. Mixing grave things with those of a 
lighter vein, the Saint gradually won the attention and 
then the hearts of the people to religious matters. 

The actual date of the establishment of the monks at 
Sherborne is doubtful. In the tenth century, as in so 
many other ancient monastic establishments, secular 
canons certainly had possession of the place. In 998, 
however. Bishop Wulsin substituted Benedictine monks 
for the priests, who were then serving the church. The 
charter of King Ethelred giving full permission for the 
change is extant, and from that time its connection with 
the Benedictine Order is clear. At first, of course, whilst 
bishops still ruled the See of Sherborne, the head of the 
monastery would have been, as in the case of other mo- 
nastic cathedrals, a prior. The bishop was held to have 
the position of abbot, and in many cases had more or less 
practical jurisdiction over the cloister as well as the ap- 
pointment of many of the officials. When in 1075 the 
See of Sherborne became merged in that of Old Sarum 
or Salisbury, the office of prior was apparently continued, 
till some time about the year 1122, when Bishop Roger 

[248] 





w^^ 




:<*»"'- '' "voaiHaBP 



Llii a uiM^ i A MiA 




SHERBORNE 

of Salisbury, having united the Priory of Horton to Sher- 
borne, erected the latter into an abbey and blessed the 
Prior Thurstan as its first abbot. 

It is interesting to note that St. Stephen Harding, the 
second founder of Citeaux and the one who really drew 
up the Cistercian rule, was a monk from Sherborne. He 
received his education in the monastery, and three of the 
monks who joined him at Citeaux are said to have also 
come from the abbey. 

The rectory of Sherborne, which in the " taxation of 
Pope Nicholas " was valued at sixty marks, was a prebend 
of Salisbury and a peculiar of that See. The abbot held 
a singular position in virtue of his office as head of the 
Church at Sherborne; he was a prebendary of Salisbury 
and had his stall in the cathedral. This prebend was 
held by each successive abbot until the dissolution in the 
sixteenth century, when being considered as part of the 
office of abbot then suppressed it became extinct. 

With the erection of the monastery into an abbey, the 
work of rebuilding and reconstruction began. When it 
was over, all that was left of the older structure was the 
western doorway in the north aisle and a part of the ad- 
joining wall-work. Bishop Roger of Salisbury mani- 
fested his continued interest in the abbey by building the 
piers of the tower and a chapel in the north transept. 
The south porch was also the work of his time, and then 
also the choir was arranged under the tower. In the 
thirteenth century the Ladychapel was rebuilt and in the 
following century four windows were placed in the north 

[251] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

aisle, but these must soon have been blocked up by the 
building of the cloisters. These cloisters were probably 
not unlike those of Gloucester; they had six windows or 
bays in each walk, and the vaulting was in the style known 
as " fan-traceried." 

At the western end of the church stood the parish 
church of AH Hallows, built upon the site of a great 
western porch twenty-nine feet broad, which originally 
had opened into the nave by a double row of pillars 
and small arches. This parish church had been removed 
out of the nave of the abbey church, and the abbot built 
a smaller doorway in the Norman arch, which greatly 
irritated the people already apparently opposed to their 
removal from the church. Leland in his Itinerary has 
left us a quaint account of what happened as the result of 
the existing popular ill-feeling. " The body of the abbey 
church," he says, " dedicated to Our Lady, served until 
a hundred years since for the chief parish church of the 
town. This was the cause of the abolition of the parish 
church there : the monks and the townsmen fell at vari- 
ance because the townsmen took privilege to use the sacra- 
ment of Baptism in the chapel of All Hallows. Upon 
this Walter Gallow, a stout butcher living in Sherborne, 
defaced clean the font stone; and after, the variance 
growing to a plain sedition, the townsmen by the help 
of the Earl of Huntingdon — and the Bishop of Salisbury 
on the monks' part — a priest of All Hallows shot a shaft 
with fire into the top of that part of St. Mary's Church 
that divided the east part that the monks used from 

[252] 




SHERBORNE ABBEY: CHOIR AND EAST WINDOW 



SHERBORNE 

what the townsmen used. This portion chancing at that 
time to be thatched, the roof was set on fire, and con- 
sequently the whole church, and the lead and bells 
melted." The Lady chapel and the porch alone escaped, 
and what is called ^^ the red stain of fire " may still be 
seen on the walls of the church. 

This was in 1436, and the abbot of the day — Abbot 
Bradford — set to work at once to repair the disaster. He 
forced the townsfolk to contribute towards the rebuilding 
of the presbytery, on the bosses of which he carved a 
fiery arrow as a warning against further feuds. The new 
vaulting was constructed in the peculiar fan-tracery pat- 
tern of the cloister. In 1459 the Norman triforium and 
clerestory of five bays of the nave were pulled down, the 
south aisle was ref aced with the old materials and the new 
windows inserted. Towards the close of the century the 
aisles were vaulted, and this was apparently the last great 
work done by the monks. 

Of the domestic buildings some small portions alone 
remain. On the west side the cellarer's lodging or guest 
hall with a fine fifteenth-century roof, over a thirteenth- 
century undercroft, still exists, and to the north of these 
there are remains of the abbot's quarters ; his parlour and 
guest hall for example. Near the site of the refectory is 
the convent kitchen containing a fireplace carved with 
the symbols of the Evangelists. The cloisters are entirely 
gone and the hexagonal vaulted conduit of 15 10, which 
used to be in the centre of the cloister garth, now stands 
in a position in the town. Leland calls it " a fair castle 

[255] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

over the conduit in the cloister and the spouts to it," and 
says it was made by John Meer or Myer, the last abbot 
but one, who resigned in 1535. 

The last abbot, John Barnstable, was elected on May 
31, 1535, and he surrendered the monastery on March 
18, 1539. The deed was acknowledged by his signature 
and those of sixteen monks, who all got pensions. The 
historian of Dorset says that on January 4, 1539, the King 
demised the property to Sir John Horsey, Kt. The deed 
in which this grant is conveyed names the Great Court, 
the Abbot's Garden, West Garden, Pyggy's Barton, 
Prior's Garden, etc., all commonly called " the demesne 
lands of the monastery," which were situated in Sher- 
borne, and were in the occupation of the abbot for the use 
of the house, for keeping up hospitality, etc. It would 
appear that Sir John Horsey in anticipation of the sur- 
render on May i, 1539, paid £1,242 3s. 9d. to the King 
for these grants and at the same time £16 los. 6d. for 
*' the site of the church, steeple, campanile and church- 
yard of the monastery," and other property. 
? A note printed by Dugdale from the parish Register 
of Sherborne carries the history of the sale of the ruins 
a step further and explains how the beautiful church 
was saved from destruction. The note runs : " The 
feast of the Annunciation of our Lady being the Shere 
Thursday in Ccena Domini, the year of our Lord 1540, 
and the thirty-first of our Sovereign Lord King Henry 
Vni, the monks being expelled and the house suppressed 
by the King's authority, Master John Horsey, Kt. Coun- 

[256] 



SHERBORNE 

cillor to the King's Grace, bought the said suppressed 
house to himself and to his heirs in fee forever, and then 
the said Master Horsey, Knight, sold the said church and 
the ground to the Vicar and parish of Sherborne for loo 
marks, to them and their successors forever, and the said 
Vicar and parish took possession on the same day and 
year above said. — Per me. D. Johannem Chattmyll, 
Vicar." This is probably the correct account: another 
story says that the parishioners paid £236 for their church 
to Sir John Horsey, and in order to raise the money sold 
their old parish church of All Hallows for the materials. 
It is probable, however, that this sum refers to the sale of 
the roofing of the minster, with that of the bell tower 
and dormitory, the lead of which was purchased for that 
sum. It was no doubt owing to the prompt action of the 
townsfolk that this fine minster church with its unrivalled 
fangroining — a great example of what was done in Eng- 
land for architecture even during the Wars of the Roses 
— was preserved to us. Thomas Arundell, the King's 
receiver for the county of Dorset, acknowledges having 
got from Sherborne by way of sales, etc., during the first 
year after its suppression the respectable sum of £520 6s. 
8|d. 



[257] 




TITCHFIELD 

*N abbey dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary 
and St. John the Evangelist was founded 
in the year 1231 or 1232 at Titchfield in 
Hampshire by Peter de Rupibus, Bishop of 
Winchester. This prelate had already established Hales 
Owen, another house of the same Order in Shropshire, 
and he brought thence a colony of religious and gave 
them his manor of Titchfield for the purpose of a second 
foundation. The abbey was placed on the banks of the 
river Titchfield in the hollow of a valley which reaches 
down to the tidal mouth of the stream which there finds 
its way to the sea outside the Southampton water. 

The religious were of the Order of Premontre, which 
had been founded in the early part of the twelfth cen- 
tury by St. Norbert. On Christmas Day, 1 121, the white 
habit of the canons regular was given to Norbert and 
some forty companions at a place called Premontre, in 
the diocese of Laon, and for many centuries this monas- 
tery remained the mother house of the Order, which was 
called after it the Premonstratensian Order. The first 
monastery of white canons in these islands was founded in 

[258] 



TITCHFIELD 

Scotland during the lifetime of St. Norbert. In Eng- 
land the first colony was established in 1143 at New- 
house, in Lincolnshire, the community being furnished 
from the Abbey of Lisques, near Calais. Within 100 
years the spread of the new Order in this country had 
been phenomenal, and Newhouse itself had established 
eleven abbeys in various parts of England. Titchfield, 
which was commenced in 1231, less than a century after 
the new Order had first taken root in the country, was 
practically the last of the English foundations, which 
numbered in all thirty-five. 

Bishop Peter de Rupibus in establishing the abbey 
reserved to himself and his successors in the See of Win- 
chester the patronage of the abbey, which remained to 
them in right of the bishopric until the dissolution of the 
monasteries in the sixteenth century. It was upon August 
15, 1 23 1, that Richard, the first abbot, and his fellow 
canons reached Titchfield to take possession of their new 
foundation, and in memory of the day the house was 
dedicated to Our Blessed Lady of the Assumption. 

From 1232, the date of its foundation, to 1537, that 
of its suppression, the monastery was ruled by a line of 
twenty abbots. Of the earlier history very little indeed 
is known. From one indication it would appear that the 
Great Pestilence of 1349 visited the abbey somewhat 
severely. The abbot, Peter de Wynton, was blessed only 
on June 8, 1348, and died on August 14, 1349. Possibly 
also the predecessor of this abbot, John de Combe, who 
died on May 23, 1348, when the plague was rife in 

[261] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

the diocese, may have been also a victim of this great 
scourge which carried off half of the population of 
England. 

In 1529 John Max, who had been Abbot of Welbeck 
from 1500 and who had been consecrated Bishop of 
Elphin in 1525, was elected Abbot of Titchfield. From 
that time till 1535, when he died, he held both it and Wel- 
beck in commendam. The last abbot was named John 
Sampson or Sympson, and he ruled only till 1537, when 
the monastery was suppressed. This same abbot was also 
a bishop, as he is called John Salysbury, suffragan bishop 
of Thetford. 

The records of one or two visitations and several lists 
of the canons in the last decades of the fifteenth century 
afford some slight details about this house. In 1478, the 
visitor appointed by the General of the Order was Bishop 
Redman, who was also Abbot of Shapp. He came to 
Titchfield on July 2, and found William Austen, the 
abbot, and a community of thirteen canons living there at 
that time. He reported that the discipline was excellent 
and that he had seen nothing serious to correct or to report 
to the General Chapter. To attain to greater perfection 
he suggested the necessity of a better keeping of silence in 
refectory and the utility of certain minor changes in cere- 
monial. He notes that at the time of the last visit the 
house was £40 in debt; that this now has been paid 
off, and a good provision was in hand in the way of 
stores, etc. 

The same visitor arrived on his next official tour on 

[262] 



TITCHFIELD 

September 9, 1482. The number of the community was 
the same, although many names in the previous list had 
disappeared in the intervening four years, their places 
being filled by others. Special commendation is passed 
on the abbot's administration, which is declared to be 
excellent. Necessary repairs had been made to the old 
buildings and new ones had been successfully undertaken. 
Incidentally we hear of a lake that was situated within 
the enclosure; because in the case of one, Ralph Ax- 
minster, which was brought up for Bishop Redman's con- 
sideration, it is said that he had left the dormitory at night 
to catch fish in it. Financially the abbey remained in 
the same excellent state as before. 

Six years pass before the next visitation, which took 
place on July 23, 1488. At that time the former abbot, 
William Austen, had been dead two years, and Thomas 
Oke or Roke was reigning in his stead. According to 
his account he had found on coming to office that the 
place was in debt £100, but during his two years of office 
he had managed to pay off half of this sum. For this 
and for other evidence of good administration in spirit- 
uals and temporals he was praised by the visitor. Three 
years later, on June i, 149 1, the visitor was again at Titch- 
field. There had been rumours set about of various 
quarrels amongst the community, and dissensions and con- 
tentions with the superior were spoken of. On diligently 
inquiring into the matter. Bishop Redman confessed him- 
self unable to find anything very serious, and contented 
himself with a general exhortation to greater fraternal 

[263] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

charity and with forbidding all to speak about the matters 
at issue after his departure. Since the previous visitation 
the debts of the house had been diminished by £20. 

The records of three subsequent visitations exist: 
namely those of 1494, 1497 and 1500. They do not 
materially add to our knowledge of the abbey; in the first 
it is interesting to hear that entire peace reigned in the 
place, and that, although the house was still in debt. 
Bishop Redman thought he could now insist upon the 
building of a proper infirmary for the sick and old. In 
the second he again testifies to the excellent condition in 
which he finds the discipline of the establishment; and in 
the third, made September 22, 1500, he prohibits certain 
changes in the habit, which were creeping in, and orders 
greater care in the keeping of silence. He ends by prais- 
ing the abbot's administration, by which Titchfield is 
once more entirely freed from the burden of debt. The 
abbot, Thomas Oke, lived for eight years longer, and 
when he died, in 1509, he was succeeded by Thomas 
Blankepayne, who appears as a novice in the list of 1482, 
and had consequently been six-and-twenty years in reli- 
gion. He died in 1529. 

The inventory of goods made on the election of Richard 
Aubray as Abbot of Titchfield, in 1420, affords us a 
glimpse at the treasures of the sacristy. "We found,-' 
say the commissioners, " in charge of the sacrist a silver 
gilt cup, to place the Body of Christ in, two large gilt 
chalices and twelve other chalices, of which six were gilt, 
one great gospel book with divers relics, a silver gilt vase 

[264] 



TITCHFIELD 

with feet and full of relics, a great silver gilt cross with 
the images of Mary and John and with large and full- 
sized feet, a processional staff with a great ball of silver 
to set the great cross in, a small silver gilt cross orna- 
mented with stones; with a small ball of silver, a silver 
gilt textum with a great beryl and a list of the dead fixed 
in it, two cruets of silver gilt, a silver gilt vase for incense 
with a silver spoon, two candlesticks of silver gilt, two 
silver dishes, a silver gilt pastoral staff, a box containing 
divers jewels, a box for a chalice, spoons and other broken 
silver, with the ancient foot of a small cross, a pix in 
which to place the Body of Christ. 

" Also in the treasury of the church was found three 
silver gilt cups with feet, two with covers, three pieces 
of gilt plate with covers and one with feet, one piece 
with the cover gilt on the inside, two gilt spoons, a salt 
gilt and with a cover, four other silver salts, two with 
covers, one large piece of silver plate with a cover, two 
other pieces of silver plate with feet and covers, a silver 
pear-shaped piece for powder, four silver bowls with feet 
and covers, two silver plates, two silver dishes, three silver 
basins, two silver ewers, a silver plate with feet for spices, 
five cups with feet and covers, a piece of plate with a 
low foot, thirty-eight pieces of silver, one with a cover, 
twenty-four silver spoons." 

I have given a translation of this interesting inventory 
in full, as an example of the riches and works of art which 
must have been gathered together in the various religious 
houses of the kingdom. Of these, practically no trace 

[ 26s ] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

now exists. Titchfield was, of course, after all only one 
of the smaller abbeys when compared with many of the 
others, and to have a knowledge of the existence of treas- 
ures such as these in its keeping in the fifteenth century 
sets the imagination at work to picture what must have 
existed elsewhere. 

For Titchfield we have, perhaps, a more complete ac- 
count of the appearance of a monastic library in the fif- 
teenth century than for any other place. " There are in 
the library of Titchfield," says the preface of the old 
catalogue, " four cases to put books in. Thus on the east 
face [i.e., opposite the door] there are two: viz. [case] 
one and [case] two. On the south side is case three and 
on the north, case four." 

Each of these cases had eight shelves, marked with a 
letter of the alphabet, which represented a division of the 
library. Thus roughly in case one were placed the Bibles 
and the patristic glosses on Holy Scripture; in case two 
was what might be termed the theological portion of the 
library; in case three the sermons, legends, regulae, with 
canon and civil law; whilst case four contained books 
upon medical and surgical science, upon grammar, logic 
and philosophy as well as a division of unclassed volumes. 
The letters of the alphabet afforded further division: 
thus, B was fixed to seven shelves of case one, and con- 
tained the various glosses on the Bible; and D, affixed to 
five shelves of case two, was assigned to the works of St. 
Gregory and St. Augustine. Lastly, on the first folio of 
each volume was entered the shelf letter, followed by a 

[266] 



TITCHFIELD 

numoer naming its position on the shelf. Thus, to take 
an example, the volume from which these particulars are 
taken is called the Rememoratorum de Tychefelde. It 
has on its first page the press mark " P. X." Turning to 
the catalogue we find that the volume is entered as the 
tenth book of shelf P. 

The same number of canons at Titchfield appears to 
have been maintained all during the fifteenth century and 
indeed until the suppression in 1539. The abbey escaped 
the fate of the smaller houses in 1536, as its revenue was 
above £200 a year, namely £249 i6s. id. The site was 
granted by Henry VIII to Sir Thomas Wriothesley, who 
commenced at once, according to Leland, to build " a 
right stately house " ; chiefly, adds Dugdale, " out of the 
materials of the abbey." 

A report " concerning the monastery of Titchfield " 
was written to Sir Thomas Wriothesley immediately after 
he had got possession of it. It runs thus : " The church 
is the most naked and barren thing that ever we knew, 
being of such antiquity and long continuance. The vest- 
ments which you gave and two old chalices excepted, 
forty will be the rest. At Michaelmas last there were 
two team of oxen and now not one ox, but a few young 
calves and lambs, hogs of small value; certain brewing 
vessels, a dozen rusty platters, dishes and saucers. . . . 
As for the hangings left we esteem them at 20s. . . . 
The debts amount to £200. The abbot and convent look 
by promises to be assured during their life yearly £120; 
as you do know the abbot must have a hundred marks, 

[ 267 ] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

every priest £6 13s. 4d., being eight in number and three 
novices £5. You know also that the house oweth the 
King for the first fruits above 200 marks and surely so 
far as we can judge the transposition and alteration of 
the house, which of necessity must be done, will stand you 
in 300 marks at the least." 



[268] 



TINTERN 

VJ^^^HE Cistercian abbey of Tintern is regarded as 
m ^1 typical of all that is beautiful and picturesque 
^^^^V in the ruined abbeys of England. Situated on 
a strip of level ground on the banks of the 
romantic river Wye, and backed by a semicircle of heavily 
wooded hills, the abbey church still remains almost entire 
as regards its main architectural features. For the un- 
rivalled beauty of its situation and for its completeness 
even in its ruined state Tintern is thought by many to 
stand first among similar memorials of the wanton 
destruction wrought in the sixteenth century. 

Our Lady of Tintern was founded in 1131 for the 
Cistercian Order by Walter de Clare, the grandson of 
Walter Fitzosbert, Earl of Ew, to whom the Conqueror 
had granted the land in this part which he could obtain 
by his victories over the Welsh. Walter de Clare's son, 
Gilbert Stronbow, became the first Earl of Pembroke, 
and when he came to die in 1 148, as a generous benefactor 
he was buried in the church at Tintern. His son, again, 
was Richard de Clare or Stronbow, known to history as 
the conqueror of Ireland in the reign of Henry 11. It 
has been thought by some that he, too, was buried in the 

[ 269 ] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

abbey his family had founded, and that a cross-legged 
effigy of a knight in chain armour still to be seen in the 
ruins is his monument. 

The monks to colonise Tintern came from the abbey 
of Aumone, in the diocese of Chartres. This monastery 
had itself been begun only ten years before, but had in- 
creased sufficiently to find an abbot and twelve monks for 
the new venture in England — an instance of the rapid 
growth of the Cistercian movement in the first half-cen^ 
tury of its existence. Indeed, the multiplication of these 
houses proceeded at such a rate that it became necessary 
to put a stop to it in the General Chapter of the Order. 

The style of the church is Transitional from Early 
English to Decorated; it was begun in the first founda- 
tion of the abbey by Walter de Clare, and was only 
finished in 1287, 156 years later. It was almost entirely 
rebuilt in the thirteenth century by Roger Bigod, Earl 
of Norfolk. Though roofless, this beautiful specimen of 
architecture remains almost perfect. One or two pillars 
have fallen, and the northern arcade of a nave of six bays 
is broken, but the walls are perfect, and the stone appears 
little injured by exposure to the weather. The church 
measures 245 feet in length; the transepts no feet; and 
the four pointed gables form a feature in the church. 
The east end has a great two-light window 64 feet high. 
" This window, with its one tall mullion ramifying at 
the top and leaving the large open spaces beneath to 
admit the distant landscape, is one chief feature of Tin- 
tern" (Gilpin). The west window opposite has seven 

[270] 



TINTERN 

lights, and it needs little imagination to picture what a 
glorious sight it must have been when filled with painted 
glass. 

The central arch at the crossing was 70 feet high, and 
the choir extended one bay into the nave. The cloisters 
were 1 1 1 feet on two sides, and 99 feet on the other two, 
and the offices were arranged in the usual manner of Cis- 
tercian houses; owing to the position of the ground, the 
domestic buildings were on the north side of the church. 
Of these very little indeed remains of interest; they have 
been gradually utilised in the building of cottages, roads 
and pigstyes in the neighbourhood. 

From the accounts of the abbey given by the abbot, 
Richard Wych, for the Valor Ecclesiasticus in 1535, it 
appears that the abbey had a gross income of £356 lis. 
6d. This was greatly reduced by necessary payments, 
fees and pensions, etc. According to the charter of 
foundation the porter, laundress, church-clerk and ferry- 
men had large carrodies or annual payments, which, how- 
ever, were disallowed by Henry VIII; gifts to the poor 
were made on Maundy Thursday, on Christmas Day and 
the Feast of the Purification, Palm Sunday, the Assump- 
tion and All Saints Day for the soul of Roger Bigod, Earl 
of Norfolk and his ancestors, and again on the Feast of St. 
Nicholas for his anniversary. In some accounts we find 
that a sum of £2 each was allowed yearly for the clothing 
of the monks; that there were six servants of the abbot; 
three men fishing in the Severn for the monastery; four 
kitchen servants, a tailor, a barber, a stableman and a 

[273] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

cutter of wood. Besides these curious particulars the 
accounts reveal the fact that the royal officials, whose 
purpose it was to get as much for the tenth as possible, 
refused to allow the deductions claimed by the abbot. 
From the total receipt of £256 iis. 6Jd. Abbot Wych 
claimed a deduction making the taxable amount to be 
only £192 IS. 4d. The King claimed that the whole had 
been understated, and Tintern was charged on a revenue 
of £258 5s. lod. 

Whatever may have been the opinion of the Crown 
officials in view of taxation, after the passing of the Act 
of Parliament in 1536 dissolving the smaller monasteries 
which had an income of less than £200 a year, Tintern 
was apparently adjudged to fall within that limit. For 
some reason, which does not appear, the abbot was sent 
for by Crumwell up to London, as we know from his 
reply saying, " I have received your letters this Saturday 
morning by the servant of John Winter, of Bristol, direct- 
ing me to come at once to you. ... Had I had them on 
Friday I should have started at once, but now will wait 
till Monday, over the High Feast of Our Blessed Lady," 
probably March 25, 1537. Whatever may have been the 
business, it was probably connected with the then impor- 
tant matter of the forced suppression of the house. It 
was taken possession of by Henry, Earl of Worcester, in 
the name of the King, on September i, 1537, and shortly 
afterwards that nobleman had a grant from the Crown 
of the property. 

Few details about the actual suppression and work of 

[274] 



TINTERN 

" defacing " the ^^ superfluous buildings," as the wanton 
destruction was called, have come down to us. As the 
history of these dissolutions was much the same in every 
case it may be of interest to give the account of what took 
place in regard to another Cistercian house in the words 
of one who was a boy at the time and who heard it from 
one actually present. " In the plucking down of these 
houses," he writes, ^^ for the most part this order was 
taken : that the visitors should come suddenly upon every 
house unawares. . . . For as soon as the visitors were 
entered within the gates, they called the abbot and other 
officers of the house and caused them to deliver all the 
keys and took an inventory of all their goods, both within 
doors and without. For of all such beasts, horses, sheep, 
and such cattle as were abroad in pasture or grange- 
places, the visitors caused to be brought into their pres- 
ence. And when they had done so [they] turned 
the abbot and all his convent and household forth of 
doors. 

" This thing was not a little grief to the convent and all 
the servants of the house, departing one from another and 
especially such as with their conscience could not break 
their profession. It would have made a heart of flint 
melt and weep to have seen the breaking up of the house, 
the sorrowful departing [of the brethren], and the sudden 
spoil that fell the same day as their departing from their 
home. And everyone had everything good, cheap, ex- 
cept the poor monks, friars and nuns, who had no money 
to bestow on anything. This appeared at the suppression 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

of an abbey, hard by me called Roche Abbey. ... At 
the breaking up of this an uncle of mine was present, be- 
ing well acquainted with several of the monks there. 
And when they were put out of the house, one of the 
monks, his friend, told him that everyone of the convent 
had given to him his cell in which he lived wherein was 
not anything of price, but his bed and apparel, which 
was but simple and of small price. This monk wished 
my uncle to buy something of him, who said : * I see noth- 
ing that is worth money for my use.' ^ No,' said he, * Give 
me two shillings for my cell door, which was never made 
with five shillings.'. . . Such persons as afterwards 
brought them corn or hay or suchlike, finding all the 
doors either open or the locks and ^ shackles ' plucked 
down or the door itself taken away, went in and took 
what they found and filched it away. 

" Some took the service books that lay in the church 
and put them upon their wam ' coppes ' to piece them; 
some took windows of the hayloft and hid them in their 
hay, and likewise they did of many other things. Some 
pulled forth the iron hooks out of the walls that had 
brought none, when the yeomen or gentlemen of the 
county had brought the timber of the church. 

" The church was the first thing that was put to spoil 
and then the abbot's lodging, the dorter and frater with 
the cloister and all the buildings thereabout within the 
abbey walls. Nothing was spared but the ox-houses and 
swine-cots and such other houses of office that stood with- 
out the walls, which had more favour shown them than 

[278] 




TINTERN ABBEY : INTERIOR 



TINTERN 

the very church itself, which was done by the advice of 
Crumwell, as Fox reporteth it in his book of Acts. 

^' It would have pitied any heart to see what tearing 
up of the lead there was, what plucking up of boards and 
throwing down of sherds. And when the lead was torn 
off and cast down into the church and the tombs in the 
church all broken (for in most abbeys were divers noble 
men and women — ^yea, in some abbeys Kings whose tombs 
were regarded no more than the tombs of inferior per- 
sons) for to what end should they stand when the church 
over them was not spared for their sakes? All things of 
price either spoiled, carried away, or defaced to the utter- 
most. 

" The persons who cast the lead into fodders plucked 
up all the seats in the choir, wherein the monks sat when 
they said service, which were like to the seats in minsters 
and burned them and melted the lead therewith, although 
there was wood plenty within a flight shot of them. . . . 
In the rocks were found pewter vessels that were con- 
veyed away and there hidden, so that it seemeth that every 
person bent himself to filch and spoil what he could. 
Yea, even such persons were content to spoil them, that 
seemed not two days before to allow their religion and do 
great worship and reverence at their Matins, Masses and 
other services and all other of their doings. This is a 
strange thing to consider that they who could this day 
think it to be the house of God, the next [did hold it as] 
the house of the devil ; or else they would not have been so 
ready to have spoiled it." 

[281] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

There is very little doubt that in its main features the 
account of the spoliation of Roche Abbey is the same as 
that of Tintern. The fact that the latter was situated in 
an isolated place may possibly have saved it from w^anton 
destruction and may account for the state of comparative 
preservation in which we find the church to-day. The 
accounts of the Augmentation Office, which was estab- 
lished to deal with the confiscated property and the ex- 
pected spoils which would fall to the Crown, gives the 
very inadequate sum of £132 8s. yd. as the total received 
from the plunder of Tintern. 



[ 282 3 



TORRE ABBEY 

GHE situation of Torre Abbey in the olden days 
must have been ideal. Placed on the sea coast 
of Devon, it looked southward across Torre 
Bay towards Brixham, and it is said to have 
been the best provided of all the five-and-thirty houses 
of the English Premonstratensian canons. It was founded 
in 1 196 by William Brinier, was endowed with much 
property in the neighbourhood and was given the pat- 
ronage of several churches and chapels. The Abbey of 
Welbeck became the mother house of Torre, sending one 
of their number, Adam, with six companions to start it; 
but after three years and a half Adam was translated to 
Newhouse as abbot. The list of the superiors at Torre 
is far from complete, and little is known of the history 
of this important abbey beyond what may be gathered 
from the lately published records of the Order in 
England. 

One curious story connected with the house in the 
fourteenth century has been preserved in the Register of 
Bishop Brantyngham of Exeter. In 1390 the bishop 
solemnly excommunicated the unknown person or per- 
sons who had spread abroad a story that the Abbot of 
Torre, William Norton, had murdered and beheaded 

[283] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

one of his canons, Simon Hastings. This accusation the 
bishop pronounced to be an infamous and malicious false- 
hood, all the more clearly so as the canon in question was 
actually alive and had been seen by many both at his 
abbey and elsewhere. 

In the year 1456 the Abbot of St. Radegund's was the 
representative in England of the Abbot of Premontre. 
As such he possessed all powers of visitation over the 
houses of the Order, and was answerable to the Chapter 
of Premonstratensians for the good discipline of the 
English branch. Acting in that capacity, on September 
10, 1456, he wrote to the Abbot of Torre, Richard Cade, 
then recently appointed, about certain rumours he had 
heard concerning the prior, William Answell. His in- 
fluence in the house was a bad one, according to reports, 
as he was a sower of discord and contention, and the 
visitor directs that the prior be forthwith sent to him at 
St. Radegund's that the matter be inquired into. In the 
same letter the writer says that he understands that the 
monastic property has been squandered, that the abbot 
does not take advice, has taken too great burdens on the 
house and has not tried to put a stop to the hurtful dis- 
sensions which take place in his monastery. He further 
suggests to him the propriety of resigning his office as 
abbot. 

In 1478 we have the first of the regular series of visi- 
tations which afford an insight into the inner history of 
Torre for the last quarter of the fifteenth century. In 
that year Bishop Redman, who was also Abbot of Shapp 

[284] 



TORRE ABBEY 

and visitor of the Order in England, appointed by the 
abbot general of Premontre, came to Torre, on August 
I, on his first visitation. One canon confessed before 
him the crime of " apostasy," theft and rebellion, which 
having been put into plain language meant leaving his 
enclosure without permission, disobeying his superior and 
spending money without leave. He was sent to do pen- 
ance at the monastery of Newhouse for forty days on 
bread and water, followed by three years' imprisonment, 
and a further detention there for another term of ten 
years. Another canon accused of apostasy in the same 
sense was ordered to Welbeck to undergo similar punish- 
ment. Bishop Redman enjoined the abbot to try and in- 
crease the number of the religious at Torre by every 
means in his power, and he gave certain regulations for 
the community life. The brethren were not to drink 
after Compline without urgent need, and never without 
full permission. The time of Vespers was to be at 
4 o'clock, both summer and winter, and all were to be 
in bed by 8 p. m. He praises the general administration 
of the abbot, however, and does not find anything of grave 
importance to correct or to refer to the General Chapter. 
In his next visitation on September 21, 1482, Bishop 
Redman is able to praise the administration of Abbot 
Cade in high terms. " In obtaining what is for the good 
of the monastery," he says, " the abbot is provident and 
circumspect beyond any other abbot of the Order." At 
this time one of the canons was accused of breaking open 
the abbot's treasury, but on inquiry he was able to clear 

[287] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

himself. The visitor finds that silence might be kept 
better, and that the tonsure was getting too big, but there 
are no grave matters to be corrected or reported to the 
Chapter. Incidentally we see from the document that 
the abbot was getting somewhat old and infirm — he was 
dead before the next visit — and the bishop charges the 
community to try and assist him when his troubles and 
sickness should increase upon him and he should become 
less able to see to all things himself. 

It is six years before there is any record of another 
visit to the abbey. This time, for some reason — " out 
of sollicitude for the monastery" the document says — 
the bishop did not actually come to Torre itself. He re- 
mained at their house of Durford in Sussex, and thither 
the abbot and a proctor for the community went to meet 
him. In this visit he gives the best report to his investi- 
gations. Everything is in an excellent state through the 
administration of the abbot, now Thomas Dare or Dyer, 
and the community have a filial affection for him and 
obey him in all confidence. 

At the time of the abbot's appointment the house was 
in debt by fifty marks, now that sum has been paid and 
a hundred marks are due to them. In the same way the 
stock and grain has increased by " his circumspect pro- 
vision." 

Three years later, on May 24, 1491, Bishop Redman 
comes again to Torre to discharge his duty as visitor. 
This time a grave charge of incontinence is brought 
against one of the community, but after full and patient 

[ 288 ] 



TORRE ABBEY 

inquiry the visitor finds him innocent, but imprudent. 
He urges on all the need of being on their guard to avoid 
giving any occasion for suspicion by their conduct. He 
reminds them of the rule of the Order that no one is to 
eat or drink in any house within a league of their monas- 
tery, and he forbids all games played for money, especially 
the game of tennis. The canons evidently took the admo- 
nition of the visitor to heart and as a community pulled 
themselves together, for three years later, on June 12, 
1494, the bishop was able to declare, after examination, 
that he had found all things in good order and all laws 
faithfully observed by both superior and subjects. The 
community also at this time were in a flourishing state; 
there were no less than six novices on the list, all of whom 
persevered and appear in the list three years later as 
canons professed. 

Bishop Redman made two other visitations of Torre, 
in 1497 and in 1^00. He had now become bishop of 
Exeter, in which diocese Torre Abbey was situated. In 
order, therefore, to safeguard for the abbey its privilege 
of exemption from episcopal visitation, on each of these 
occasions he protests that he has come to visit the place 
not as Bishop of Exeter, but as the commissary of the 
Abbot of Premontre, which office he still continues to 
hold. In 1497 he finds everything in a most satisfactory 
state. The place, he says, is governed in all things to the 
honour of God and to the good of the monastery. " So 
much is this so, that nothing whatever there offended my 
sight, but everything proper to a holy life." In the visita- 

[289] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

tion of 1500 the bishop renews his commendation of the 
rule of the abbot; he finds all things in an excellent state, 
but corrects two of the canons for carelessness in regard to 
silence. The community is seen to have increased in 
numbers in this last glimpse we get of it. Twenty years 
before it was fourteen, row it Is eighteen, four of whom 
are novices. 

The last abbot was Simon Rede, elected and confirmed 
by the King in August, 1523. He and his fellow canons 
surrendered the monastery to the King, February 23, 
1539, before the commissioner, William Petre. The 
abbot and his religious each received a pension. One of 
the canons, John Estrige, died within a month of his 
being expelled from his old home. 

The church was 200 feet long, but very little of it re- 
mains by which to judge of its architecture. There are 
now standing of the church only portions of the central 
tower, the east end of the choir, a south chapel : and of 
the domestic buildings, the entrance of the Chapter 
House, the refectory, a fourteenth-century building 52 
feet by 25 feet; and a large gateway of the same date. Of 
the outbuildings a fine decorated barn 120 feet long still 
stands. Dr. Oliver says of Torre that " nothing can ex- 
ceed the beautiful situation of this great abbey; and if we 
may judge by the remains of the church, of the Chapter 
House and other buildings, the magnificence of the fabric 
did honour to the situation." When Leland visited the 
abbey three fair gateways were standing. One gateway 
remains, 

[290] 



TORRE ABBEY 

The sale of the buildings and effects of the abbey begare 
immediately here as elsewhere. In the accounts of the 
year ending Michaelmas, 1340, Sir John Arundel credits 
the Augmentation OfBce with the amount of £43 los. 
for the sake of bells and superfluous buildings at Torre. 
During the same time the same agent had expended £79 
13s. yd. in Devon and Cornwall in " defacing, breaking 
up and pulling down divers churches, bell towers, 
cloisters and other buildings of late monasteries." Sir 
John Arundel likewise acknowledges having received 
from various rents of Torre lands £180 7s. ijd. 

Two grants of the property are registered the year after 
the Dissolution. One on March 4, 1540, to Sir John 
Ridgeway, and the second on March 10 to Sir Roger 
Buett. The receipts from the rents paid in 1540 to Sir 
Thomas Arundel were £294 8s. 2|. 



[291] 



THORNEY 

XN what is known as " the Isle of Cambridge " 
in the fen country, and about equally distant 
from Peterborough and Crowland, stood the 
Benedictine house of Thorney. It is said that 
Saxulph, the first Abbot of Peterborough, built a hermi- 
tage on this spot about the year 662. It was then and for 
200 years afterwards called Ancarig, and it is suggested, 
though the suggestion comes indeed from Ingulph's sus- 
pected chronicle, that the name was derived from the ex- 
istence of several anchorites, who apparently lived there 
under the rule of a prior. Whatever may have been its 
early history Ancarig, like other monasteries, was de- 
stroyed by the Danes, and it was not until 972 that, being 
re-established by St. Ethelwold of Winchester with the 
help and authority of King Edgar, Benedictine monks 
were placed there as at Peterborough and Crowland. 
The place then became known as Thorney — or the island 
of thorns — from the trees that grew luxuriantly upon it, 
an island by reason of the waters that surrounded it. It 
was considered a specially sacred island, and except to 
offer their devotions in the church, no women were al- 
lowed to set foot on the island, and the nearest place 
where they were permitted to stay was nine miles away. 

[292] 




/ 

u 

i 



THORNEY 

St. Ethelwold brought to Thorney, possibly on account 
of its secluded position, the body of St. Botulph and many 
other relics of English Saints, which had been saved from 
destruction during the Danish wars. Amongst others he 
is said to have obtained the body of St. Benet Bishop 
from the destroyed monastery of Weremouth. Edgar in 
his charter of foundations declares the monastery dedi- 
cated to Our Saviour and His Blessed Mother. He had 
chosen the spot, he says, because here two brothers, Tan- 
cred and Tortred, had lived the life of anchorites, the one 
being martyred, the other giving to the world a glorious 
confession of the Faith. Their sister Tova also had fol- 
lowed them in her manner of life and in the holiness of 
her death. Then devastation and entire destruction had 
almost obliterated the memory of what had been, until a 
pious woman, Ethelfled, bought the site and built upon it 
a monastery and church. This was now dedicated to the 
Holy Trinity: the eastern part of the presbytery was con- 
secrated to " the honour of the Mother of God, Mary ever 
a virgin"; the western end "to St. Peter, the guardian 
of the keys of heaven," and the north portico to St. Bene- 
dict, patron of all monks. 

The church set up by St. Ethelwold, who apparently 
presided over Thorney whilst he lived, lasted for more 
than a century. At the time of the Conquest the abbatial 
ofBce was held by Siward, a Dane, but about two years 
later, in 1068, the Conqueror appointed Fulcard, a Flem- 
ing. For some reason or other Fulcard was deposed in 
a council held at Gloucester by Archbishop Lanfranc in 

[ 295 ] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

1085. To the abbatial office thus vacant a monk of 
Battle Abbey named Gunther, was chosen. He set him- 
self at once to the task of rebuilding much of the monas- 
tery: in the year of his election he took down the church, 
and much of the new structure was apparently finished 
in 1098. The whole was completed in 1108, four years 
before his death, although it was another twenty years 
before the dedication of the church was renewed. 

The series of charters and other documents relating to 
Thorney show what numerous benefactors the monks had 
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In the Dooms- 
day survey the value of the abbey is placed at about the 
same as that of Peterborough; and William of Malmes- 
bury describes the place in the reign of Henry II as 
wonderful and prosperous. " The monastery of Thor- 
ney," he writes, " is in the parish [i.e., diocese] of the 
Bishop of Ely. It is ^ an image of Paradise': the eyes 
feast on the greenness of the trees, and herbs, and grass 
and everywhere presents the same delightful prospect. 
Not the smallest part of the soil remains uncultivated; 
here the land produces apple-trees, here the fields are 
devoted to the cultivation of vines, which either creep 
on the earth or rise towards heaven supported by poles. 
Nature and cultivation contend together, and where the 
one fails the other succeeds. . . . What shall be said of 
the beauty of the buildings which in a wonderful way 
amid these marshes have found firm foundations! Abso- 
lute solitude secures quiet to the monks so that they may 
more closely cling to heavenly concerns." 

[296] 



THORNEY 

The church, rebuilt in the sixteen years from 1098, was 
290 feet long. The nave of five bays erected by Abbot 
Gunther still exists; it has a perpendicular clerestory 
and a small triforium. The finest feature of the building 
at present is the west front; it has square turrets, with 
later octagonal terminations 100 feet high. High up 
over the west window there is a screen with elaborate 
panels, and niches with nine images. The five nave 
arches rest on pillars built between 1088 and 1125, and 
as the aisles and clerestory were destroyed at the sup- 
pression, the space between the piers is filled in with later 
work, and a row of clerestory windows substituted where 
the small triforium used to be. Willis states that about 
the year 1636 the side aisles were taken down and part of 
the material employed in filling in the arches of the 
nave. 

In the time of Abbot William Ryall, who entered office 
in 1457, Reginald Pecock, Bishop of Chichester, on being 
deprived of his See, was taken to Thorney to be kept in 
confinement. The Archbishop of Canterbury sent to the 
abbot the following instructions how he should be treated: 
**i. That he have a secret closed chamber with a chimney 
and a house of easement, and that he pass or go not out of 
the said chamber. 2. That he have but one person, that is 
serious and well disposed, to make his bed and fire as he 
shall have occasion, and that no one else speak to him 
without leave, and in the presence of the abbot, unless the 
King or Archbishop send to the abbey any man with writ- 
ing specially in that behalf. 3. That he shall have no 

[297] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

books to look on or to read in, but only a Mass book, a 
psalter, a legend and a Bible. 4. That he have neither 
pen, ink or paper. 5. That he have competent fuel or 
firing according to his age. 6. That the first quarter 
after his coming into the abbey he be contented to fare no 
better than a brother or monk doth, only of the freytour, 
or to have the same commons as the monks have in their 
common hall; but afterwards that he be served daily of 
meat and drink, as one of the friars or monks when he 
is excused from the freytour, and somewhat better after- 
wards, as his disposition, etc., shall require. For all 
which, and for fitting up this close apartment for the 
bishop, the abbot is ordered to have eleven pounds." For 
his maintenance £40 a year was assigned, but he is sup- 
posed to have lived only a year or two after his reclusion 
at Thorney, where he was doubtless buried. 

Robert Blyth became abbot in 1525. At that time he 
was already Bishop of Down and Connor in Ireland and 
held the abbey in commendam. He and his community 
of nineteen monks surrendered the monastery into the 
King's hands on December i, 1539, and most of the com- 
munity received the usual pension of £6 13s. 4d. a year. 
The abbot for his share obtained £200 a year and prob- 
ably also the possession of the abbot's house at Whittlesey. 
In his will, dated October 19, 1547, he calls himself 
" Robert Blythe, bishop of Downe," and appoints his 
body to be buried in the church of Whittlesey, in the 
county of Cambridge, before the Holy Sacrament of the 
Altar, and gives a legacy to the parsonage of Whittle- 

[298] 



THORNEY 

sey, belonging to the late dissolved monastery of 
Thorney, 

The greater portion of the possessions of the abbey of 
Thorney, together with the site of the monastery, were 
granted, in the third year of King Edward VI, to John, 
Earl of Bedford. By that time, although we have not 
the actual details, we may be pretty sure that the main 
part of the monastic buildings, including the church, had 
been wrecked, as being " superfluous buildings." Very 
possibly the bells and lead of Thorney were included in 
the lots bought by John Core, a speculative grocer of 
London. The bells in this list of purchases numbered 
fifty-six, and were conveyed to London, where they were 
found to weigh 4,800 pounds and to be worth £432. To 
collect these the expenses are found recorded in the min- 
ister's accounts. We there learn the cost of dismantling 
the bells and belfries, the expenses of labourers in casting 
down and breaking up the bells, the price paid for " ham- 
mers, iron wedges, crowes of iron, lescheselles," and other 
instruments bought and used at different times for break- 
ing up the bells. Also the cost of barrels bought at dif- 
ferent times, and tuns to put the broken metal in to carry 
it to London. In one account labourers were occupied 
and carts used for seventy-five days, and at the end the 
receiver stated that he had got together lead and bells 
amounting to £5,898 17s. 3Jd. 



[299] 



WHITBY 

XT is difBcult to imagine any more impressive 
sight than Whitby Abbey must have presented 
to ships passing along the Yorkshire coast be- 
fore the sixteenth-century wreckers had dis- 
mantled and defaced it. The church was 300 feet by 69 
feet, with transepts 150 feet across, and the vaulting was 
60 feet above the floor. The central tower rose far into 
the air to serve as a landmark by day, whilst by night the 
lights of St. Hilda's tower shone far out to sea " from 
high Whitby's cloister'd pile " to cheer and guide those 
who sailed in ships, over that long stretch of water with- 
out a harbour. " It is impossible," says a modern writer, 
" to imagine anything more grand than this noble minster 
when complete, rising majestically 250 feet above the sea, 
and approached across the deep valleys and mountain 
wastes of the Vale of Pickering. ... In the midst of the 
storm or sea-fog the chime of its great bells cheered the 
sailors seeking refuge on that terrible coast, and in the 
darkness of night the pale gleam of its lights was a beacon 
visible leagues away — to that seaman's eye it seemed the 
lustrous form of St. Hilda herself standing in one of the 
northern windows and guiding him with her lamp." 

[300] 



'<> 




WHITBY 

The story of Whitby, or as it was then called Streanes- 
halch — ^which St. Bede tells us meant " Lighthouse bay " 
— goes back on the earliest days of Saxon Christianity. 
In 655 Oswy, King of Northumbria, attacked by Penda 
of Mercia and Cadwalla, vowed to found twelve monas- 
teries if successful in the fight that was being forced upon 
him. He was victorious, and keeping his word sent his 
daughter to be brought up in the monastery of Hartle- 
pool, over which Hilda, the great-niece of Edwin, pre- 
sided. Two years later, in 657, Hilda and Oswy's 
daughter Helflad went from Hartlepool to establish, on 
one of the estates promised by the King, the monastery of 
Streaneshalch. Here St. Hilda for a long time ruled a 
double community of men and women, and as she was 
eminent for her knowledge and piety, people of all ranks 
came to seek her counsel and aid ; many of the monks of 
this monastery became priests, and several were raised to 
the episcopate. 

We have no detailed account of the building raised by 
St. Hilda at the first foundation of the house. We may, 
however, conjecture that it was large, since it not only 
contained the two communities, but in 664 a council to 
determine the controversy concerning the celebration of 
Easter and the shape of the clerical tonsure was held in 
the monastery. Of the church the only indication that 
we have is in the old life of St. Gregory, where we learn 
that besides the High Altar there were in the first church 
two other altars dedicated respectively to SS. Peter and 
Gregory. 

[ 303 ] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

Hilda took a considerable part in determining the issue 
of the Synod of Whitby over which Oswy presided in 
person. With St. Hilda's name was linked many a 
legend in the country round. Some are recorded in 
Scott's lines: 

They told, how in their convent cell 
A Saxon princess once did dwell, 
The lovely Edelfled. 
And how, of thousand snakes, each one 
Was changed into a coil of stone 
When holy Hilda prayed; 
Themselves, within their holy bound, 
Their stony folds are often found. 
They told, how sea- fowls* pinions fail 
As over Whitby's towers they sail 
And, sinking down, with flutterings faint, 
They do their homage to the saint. 

Hilda died, according to the Saxon Chronicle, in 680, 
in the sixty-sixth year of her age. Among her monks at 
Streaneshalch was the first native poet Caedmon, who 
had been a herdsman. St. Bede tells us that the highest 
flights of poetry were so natural to him that he dreamed 
in verse and even composed excellent poems in his sleep, 
which he was afterwards able to repeat in his waking 
hours. The account of his death with its simple faith in 
the future life is one of the most beautiful pieces in St. 
Bede's Ecclesiastical History, 

Hilda was succeeded as abbess by King Oswy's daugh- 
ter Aelfleda, and St. Bede tells us that the latter died in 
714. It was during her rule that the remains of her 

[304] 



WHITBY 

father were removed from the grave on the field of battle 
where he had fallen, and were brought to a tomb in the 
abbey which he had founded. Here they were buried 
" with the rest of the bodies of our kings," as the un- 
known monk, the author of the Life of St. Gregory, says, 
an expression which gives a precise indication of the 
position the church held in Northumbria in the early 
days of Christianity. 

Streaneshalch continued to prosper after the death of 
St. Hilda and her successor, Aelfleda, till about the year 
867. From the year 866 the Danish invasions assume a 
new and more terrible character. Previously plunder 
had been the object of the frequent raids of the North- 
men; now they dreamt of conquest. On November i, 
867, " the army," as it is called, stormed and took York 
and quickly spread over Deira, plundering and destroy- 
ing. Every monastery and church in the province was 
left a heap of smoking ruins. Amongst others the abbey 
of St. Hilda perished utterly. The Danes, under 
Hunguar and Hubba, landed in Dunsley Bay, two miles 
to the west of the monastery, and proceeded to plunder 
and destroy it. The community were dispersed, and 
probably many were slaughtered in their cloister, whilst 
one monk is said to have anticipated the evil day by re- 
moving the relics of St. Hilda to Glastonbury. For more 
than two centuries the site of Streaneshalch remained 
waste and desolate, but the memory of the old religious 
home was preserved in the name given to the few huts 
which in process of time sprung up round about It was 

[ 305 ] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

called by the people Presteby, which signified the dwell- 
ing-place of the priests or religious. 

When next the abbey rises from its ruins it is under the 
name of Whitby. William the Conqueror had already 
made good his hold over the country when in 1074 three 
monks departed from Evesham on a mission to restore 
some of the wasted monasteries of Northumbria. The 
story may be seen in Simeon of Durham's History, and 
the names he gives are those of Aldwin of Winchelcombe, 
Alfury a deacon, and Reinfrid, who from the profession 
of arms had betaken himself to the religious life in the 
cloister at Evesham. These monks took with them only 
the necessary books and vestments for Mass, which were 
carried on the back of a patient ass. The first of the little 
band of monks remained at Newcastle, the second estab- 
lished himself at Jarrow, and Reinfrid refounded Whitby 
as a monastery of Benedictines, being helped by the 
gifts of Hugh, Earl of Chester, and of William de 
Percy. 

Reinfrid appears to have lived till 1084, and was fol- 
lowed in his office of prior by two of the family of Percy, 
the brother and the son of one of the founders. In the 
reign of Henry I the abbey had grown in numbers and 
importance, and the King added considerably to its pos- 
sessions, and granted to it the dues of a port or haven 
at Whitby. At this time the number of the community 
would appear to have been thirty-six or thirty-eight. At 
some time between 1109-1127 the monastery was created 
an abbey, and in the middle of the same century it was 

[306] 




■-•* 



-./ 



- ^^ J- 



i"^a 




WHITBY 

plundered and at least partially destroyed by some pirates 
from Norway who had landed on the coast. 

The history of Whitby during the succeeding centuries 
was even and uneventful, with apparently little to disturb 
the peace and harmony of the Benedictine mode of life. 
It was during this time that there was built up the church, 
portions of which now stand on the cliff, desolate and un- 
cared for, and slowly crumbling to dust. Every vestige 
of the conventual buildings has vanished, the materials 
having been utilised in a neighbouring building. The 
Early English presbytery of the great church remains, 
and shows that the edifice must have been one of the many 
architectural glories of mediaeval England. The seven 
bays of choir and sanctuary, the exquisite transepts of 
three bays with rich buttresses, the two tiers of graceful 
lancet windows in the front and portions of the decorated 
nave still stand and makes us sigh for the rest. The 
church was 350 feet long, the tower 150 feet high, and 
each arm west and east was 150 feet long. 

In 1527, on the death of Abbot Thomas York, John 
Topcliffe or Henhem was chosen to succeed to the abbacy. 
The times were perilous and it was not long before the 
King's policy, with regard to the religious houses, became 
evident. Abbot John from the first was troubled by the 
royal visitors and the impossible injunctions they left be- 
hind them. He wrote his doubts to Crumwell and 
pointed out the difficulty of governing any religious house 
under the circumstances; but with what result does not 
appear. In 1537, under the pretext that the risings in 

[309] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

the north must have been much countenanced by the 
monks, Henry seized the revenues of Whitby. After un- 
availing protests the abbot is said to have " certified " 
Crumwell " that he would resign," but he vigorously 
denied any desire to desert his post. Layton and Legh, 
two of the most notorious of the royal visitors, went to 
Whitby to keep him to his supposed word or to " find any 
cause of deprivation." They wrote thence to Crumwell 
to ask whether the all-powerful minister had anyone he 
intended to appoint, or if not whether he would leave 
it to them " to find a man habill both for the King's hon- 
our and discharge of his conscience and for your worship 
and also profit." 

Crumwell, however, did not think well to leave the 
matters to Doctors Layton and Legh. In October, 1538, 
having secured the resignation, he despatched two agents, 
upon whom he could rely, with instructions to get the 
community to leave the choice of a new superior to them, 
when they should be instructed whom they were to nom- 
inate. This the monks refused, upon which the agents 
tried to get them to allow Crumwell to appoint, but as 
they were still recalcitrant, and as the agents had with 
them ^' the conge d^eslier and full election from the King," 
they thought it best to delay the election till they could 
hear further. On this the prior, Robert Woodhouse, and 
others went up to interview the minister on the subject. 
Immediately they had gone the agents renewed their 
solicitations of the community, and on October 30, 1538, 
the monks gave way and signed a paper in the presence 

[310] 



WHITBY 

of Tristram Teste and his fellow commissioners allowing 
Crumwell to appoint. The effect may be judged by the 
royal appointment of Henry Davell on December 9, 1538, 
by whom the monastery was surrendered to the King on 
December 14, 1540. 

Charlton concludes his account of Whitby thus: " after 
being plundered of the wood, the timber and the lead 
upon its roof, and also of its bells and everything else be- 
longing thereto that could be sold, it was left standing 
with its stone walls, a mere skeleton of what it had for- 
merly been, to crumble away by degrees into dust or to 
form a heap of rubbish which might merely show pas- 
sengers in future ages that there Whitby formerly stood. 
It is true some part of this lead was laid upon the church 
of St. Mary, which was still permitted to be the parish 
church of Whitby, and which seems till then to have had 
only a thatched roof; but that lead was only a small part 
of the whole and all the remainder was carried away and 
converted into money." 



[311] 



WOBURN 

^-»^OBURN ABBEY, a monastery of the Cister- 
W ■ ^ cian Order, had its origin in the piety of Hugh 
\B^^ de Bolbeck in 1145. Desiring to establish 
some religious house, he came to Fountains and 
obtained the help of the abbot in erecting a monastery 
at a place called Woburn, in Bedfordshire, which, like 
all Cistercian foundations, was dedicated to the Blessed 
Virgin. As the first community, thirteen of the monks 
of Fountains were detached from their own house and 
sent to colonise Woburn, under Alan, one of those who 
had gone to Fountains from St. Mary's, York. 

The new foundation was at first very poor; in fact, 
although from the extant charters it is apparent that it 
did not lack benefactors, the endowment was so scanty 
that after struggling for more than eighty years, in 1234 
it was broken up for a time and the community scattered 
in other monasteries of the Order, till the debts that had 
been contracted at Woburn could be paid. How long 
this dispersal continued does not appear, but it is certain 
that before the close of the century the name of the com- 
munity stands in the taxation of Pope Nicholas, and that 
in 1297 Robert de Stoke was elected abbot. It never 

[312] 








k:.. 







WOBURN 

became a very rich house, however, and its net revenue 
was returned in the time of Henry VIII as slightly under 
£392. 

Of its history little is known but the closing drama 
which ended with the execution of the abbot and the con- 
fiscation of the abbey possessions. The first incident 
affords us an insight into the anxieties and trials experi- 
enced by the religious superiors during the few years 
prior to the suppression of the monasteries. As the 
autumn of 1536 drew on to a close, reports from all sides 
must have come into the cloisters of the scenes of destruc- 
tion and sacrilege which everywhere were being enacted 
in the work of dissolving the smaller religious houses, 
of the pitiable state of the ejected religious, and of 
the rumours, that found ready credence, of projected sup- 
pression on a much larger scale. It requires little stretch 
of the imagination to picture the dismay with which the 
religious must have listened to the current reports of 
violence and injustice. But a glimpse of the truth is 
afforded in the depositions which at the time were made 
against the Abbot of Woburn. 

When the report of the execution of the Carthusians of 
the London Charter House reached the monastery, the 
abbot assembled his brethren in their Chapter House, and 
having recited the psalm Deus venerunf gentes, he spoke 
as follows: "Brethren, this is a perilous time. Such a 
scourge was never heard since Christ's passion. You 
have heard how good men do suffer death. My brethren, 
this is undoubtedly for our offence, for ye have heard that 

[315] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

so long as the Children of Israel kept the Commandments 
of God, so long their enemies had no power over them, 
but God took vengeance of their enemies. But w^hen 
they broke God's Commandments, then they were sub- 
dued, and so be we. Therefore let us be sorry, and un- 
doubtedly he will take vengeance on our enemies, these 
heretics who cause so many good men to suffer thus. Alas ! 
it is a piteous case that so much Christian blood be shed. 
Therefore, my good brethren, for the love of God, let 
everyone of you devoutly pray and say this psalm Deus 
venerunt, etc., with the versicle Exurgat Deus, etc., this 
same psalm to be said every Friday, immediately after 
the Litany, prostrate, when ye lie before the High Altar 
and doubt not God will allay this storm." 

But the help Abbot Hobbes' simple faith in Providence 
expected did not come to him. He and his monastery 
were destroyed in the great catastrophe which over- 
whelmed so many in those days of Tudor despotism. The 
story of Woburn is pathetic, and perhaps more so than 
that of any other English house, by reason of the touching 
details that have been preserved to us. In it the veil, 
which perhaps fortunately shrouds the heartbreaking in- 
cidents of the general dissolution, is slightly lifted, and 
we are afforded a glimpse of the fear and hope and 
despair which by turns filled the hearts of the religious 
in the time during which the sword was kept hanging 
over their heads. Paralysed by the masterful policy of 
Crumwell, it seems as if their hearts were chilled by the 
thought of the uncertain fate awaiting them, whilst the 

[316] 



WOBURN 

very source of the religious life was being poisoned by 
the injunctions and irritating visitations, the object of 
which was to make the cloister unbearable, and drive the 
monks to rebel or surrender their monasteries. 

Richard Hobbes had been Abbot of Woburn for some 
years when he and his monks, at the royal command, took 
the Oath of the Royal supremacy. It was clearly against 
the abbot's better judgment and that of some at least of 
the community, that they had sworn as commanded and 
had not resisted. Dan Ralph, the sub-prior, subsequently 
acknowledged this and begged the King's pardon for it, 
and for the " erroneous estimation of Mr. More and the 
Bishop of Rochester, whose death he a great while 
thought meritorious, wishing he had died with them." In 
fact, evidently to save the abbot if possible, Dan Ralph de- 
clared that it was he who, " by counsel and menace " had 
persuaded him to take the required Oath. Another of 
the community, Dan Lawrence, the sexton, declared that 
when he was sworn he could not touch the Book (of the 
Gospels) on account of the numbers, and so considered 
his conscience free, although he had signed '' the carte of 
profession." 

According to the gossip, even at the beginning of 1536, 
when the bill for suppressing the lesser monasteries had 
passed, it was said that Woburn " and other more should 
go down ere Twelthtide." But in reality it was not until 
1538 that any steps were taken by Crumwell to bring 
about the Dissolution. The final catastrophe was 
hastened by certain malicious informations of discon- 

[317] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

tented monks, who at Woburn as in many monasteries in 
England at this time, served Crumwell as spies and fur- 
nished him with welcome accusations of their superiors 
and brethren. 

On May 12, 1538, Abbot Hobbes and certain of his 
monks found themselves in the Tower of London, where 
they were subjected to a severe examination. One of the 
charges brought up against him, which he did not deny, 
was the sermon he had made to his community on the 
death of the Carthusians in London. Besides this when 
the Act dissolving the monasteries was passed in 1536, the 
abbot had called his subjects to chapter, and, according 
to the depositions of four monks, had addressed them 
" with suchlike exhortation in the said Chapter House, 
with lamentable mournings for the dissolving of them, 
enjoined us to sing Salvator mundi salva nos omnes every 
day after Lauds. And we murmured at it and were not 
contented to sing it for such a cause, and so we did omit it 
divers times. For this cause the abbot came into the 
chapter and did in manner rebuke us and said we were 
bound to obey his commands by our profession. And so 
he did command us to sing it again with versicles Exurgat 
Deus, etc., and enjoined us to say at every Mass that every 
priest did sing a collect, Deus qui contritorum, etc. And 
he said, if we did thus with good and pure devotion, God 
would handle the matter so that it should be to the com- 
fort of all England, and so show us mercy as He showed 
to the Children of Israel. And surely, brethren, he said, 
there will come over us a good man who will re-edify 

[318] 




THE ABBOT S OAK, WOBURN 



WOBURN 

these monasteries again that are now suppressed quia 
potens est Deus de lapidibus istis suscitare filios Abrahce/' 

But during the time of waiting for the doom of their 
house there was inevitable excitement, contention and 
recrimination among the monks of Woburn, with cross 
accusations of one party against the other. In the " shav- 
ing house," one told another that he belonged to the 
" new world." Bitter words passed, and one of those 
there present declared that " neither thou nor yet any of 
us shall do well as long as we forsake our head of the 
church, the Pope " ; to which his opponent replied calling 
him " a false, perjured knave to his prince." Another 
monk wrote to Crumwell to complain of his abbot that, 
having spoken against the quality of the bread supplied 
in the monastic refectory, he was told " to go further and 
fare worse." 

These and other tales carried to the too willing ear of 
the King's minister brought the abbot under suspicion. 
He was arrested with others of his monks and lodged in 
the Tower. At the end he had tried to anticipate the 
event by a joint letter from himself and his monks hand- 
ing over themselves and their monastery to Henry's 
mercy. They declared their full recognition of the 
King as Supreme Head and protested their innocence of 
the charges brought against them. Their submission, 
however, came too late; the reply was the seizure of the 
abbot and others of the monks. 

In his examination Richard Hobbes, the Abbot of 
Woburn, practically allowed all that had been advanced 

[321 ] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

against him. His objection to the " Royal Headship," he 
urges, was not out of malice " but only for a scrupulous 
conscience he then had touching the continuance of the 
Bishop of Rome," and he confessed that when the papal 
Bulls were sent up to Doctor Petre, he got Dan Robert 
Salford " to write the principal Bulls in a fair hand," and 
the junior monks, not priests, to transcribe the others in a 
running hand, so that when the quarrel between the King 
and the Pope was settled he might have evidence of his 
old privileges and exemptions. " These copies," he said, 
" remained yet in my chamber at my coming away." 

He confessed also having likened Henry to Nebu- 
chadonasor taking away the sacred vessels of the temple: 
to having spoken against the " new learning " and " in 
all audiences from time to time " that " I have stood 
stiffly in my opinion of the old trade unto this present day, 
maintaining the part of the Bishop of Rome, so far as I 
durst, thinking that it was the true way, and the contrary 
of the King's part but usurpation desiderated by flattery 
and adulation." He fully admitted, further, that he had 
wished, and had said that he wished that he had died with 
the Carthusians, More and Fisher. He also confessed 
that he now deplored the suppression of so many monas- 
teries and that for all these troubles he had blamed 
the advice of Crumwell and the unfortunate divorce 
question. 

This ample confession, evidently made by the advice 
of Crumwell, pitifully reveals the mind, heart and soul 
of Abbot Hobbes, in all their many perplexities. He 

[322] 



WOBURN 

had before him all the horrors of prison and the thought 
of a terrible and ignominious death. Under stress of this 
haunting fear, before his examination is over, in accents 
more pitiful still, he admits that after all he may have 
been mistaken and pleads for pardon. 

But such a surrender as the abbot brought himself to 
make in the last resource v^as useless. Henry had passed 
the stage when any sentiment of compassion for human 
weakness or pity for any living soul could find a place in 
his heart. The abbot was apparently tried at Lincoln, 
and in those days of constructive verbal treason he was 
pre-condemned by his own confession. With him, in the 
same charge, were arraigned two of his monks, Lawrence 
Bloxam and Richard Barnes. All three were found 
guilty and ordered to be drawn, hanged and quartered. 

The sentence was carried into effect at Woburn itself. 
Tradition points to an old tree, now called " the abbot's 
oak," in front of the place where the abbey buildings 
stood, as the gallows from which Abbot Hobbes, his two 
monks and the vicar of Puddington paid the extreme 
penalty for expressing their opinions on these matters of 
conscience and disapproving of the King's proceedings. 
The possessions of the abbey, producing a clear income 
of about £400 a year, passed into the royal hands by virtue 
of the new interpretation of the law of treason. On Sep- 
tember 29 the royal receiver of attainted land acknowl- 
edged the receipt of £266 12s. from the sales of the 
Woburn monastic goods. A few years later the property 
was granted to Sir John Russell, whose descendants still 

[323] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

enjoy it. Not a vestige of the church or of the monastery 
building now exists. The old pollard-like oak, however, 
remains, and fastened against it were some verses by 
Wiffle, the historian of the house of Bedford, in which he 
rejoices that the " old memorial of the mitred monk" has 
lived to flourish in a brighter day. 



[324] 



WALTHAM ABBEY 

XN Essex, on level land near to the river Lea, and 
with the rising ground of Epping Forest be- 
hind it, stands what is left of the abbey of 
Waltham Holy Cross. For some centuries be- 
fore the suppression it was a house of Canons Regular of 
St. Augustine. The members of this Order followed a 
rule founded on the instructions of St. Augustine and ap- 
proved at Rome in Councils held by Popes Nicholas II 
and Alexander II, which insisted on these canons embrac- 
ing an entire community of life as practised by all other 
regulars. The adoption of this code facilitated the 
formation of bodies of regular canons, not connected 
either with cathedrals or with colleges of priests, and 
during the twelfth century the foundations made through- 
out Europe by the Augustinian Canons Regular were very 
numerous. Here in England in the sixteenth century, 
they possessed more than 170 houses, two of which, 
namely Waltham Cross and Cirencester, were mitred 
abbeys. These canons served also one English cathedral, 
Carlisle. 

The first foundation at Waltham, and indeed the adop- 
tion of the name of " Holy Cross " as the dedication, was 

[ 32s ] 



WALTHAM ABBEY 

brought about, according to legend, in a mysterious 
manner. In the reign of King Canute a pious smith, so 
runs the story, received a supernatural intimation that 
he would find a crucifix buried on the hill at Montacute, 
in Somerset. The parish priest was consulted and 
thought that the matter should be examined into at once. 
At the head of a procession, praying and singing the 
Litanies, this priest accompanied the smith to the spot 
which had been pointed out to him in his dream and 
which, when on the ground, he fully recognised. Here, 
after much digging, the searchers came upon a wonderful 
crucifix carved in black marble. The discovery natu- 
rally made a great impression at the time, and, indeed, the 
fact suggested the war-cry of the English at the battle of 
Senlac: "Holy Cross, out, out!'^ The lord of the 
manor of Montacute at the time of the discovery was 
named Tovi, a well-known soldier who was standard- 
bearer to King Canute. By his direction the crucifix was 
placed on an ornamented car, to which were harnessed 
twelve red oxen and twelve white cows, and the ultimate 
destination was left to their instincts, guided, of course, by 
Providence. The spot at which they ultimately stopped, 
and which was thus pointed out by fate as the place where 
the cross was to remain, was Waltham, a small and com- 
mon hunting box in Hertfordshire. Here Tovi, with the 
King's help, established two priests to act as guardians of 
the crucifix thus so strangely found at Montacute and 
providentially brought to Waltham. From the first this 
cross was believed to possess miraculous powers, and 

[326] 




*#^ 



WALTHAM ABBEY 



WALTHAM ABBEY 

amongst other favours thought to have been obtained at 
its shrine was the cure of Harold, son of Earl Godwin, 
from the palsy. In recognition and gratitude for this, 
Godwin began the building of a large church and estab- 
lished twelve priests in charge, in place of the two who 
had served the small chapel previously. 

The church thus begun with what the chronicler calls 
columnce sublimes — marvellous columns — and arches con- 
necting them, was finished in 1060 and was consecrated on 
May 3 of that year. It was 278 feet in length ; and across 
the transept it was 94 feet. The walls were all in stone, 
and there is said to have been much gilding over the altar, 
with gilt and embossed metal plates round the capitals. 
At the time of the dedication, Edward the Confessor, who 
was present, gave his royal charter confirming Harold's 
liberal donation of seventeen manors to the church of 
Waltham. 

On his way to the decisive battle of Hastings, in which 
he lost his life, Harold came to Waltham to pay a visit 
to the shrine, and to offer up his devotions there at the 
great cross. His body, after having been buried first on 
the field of battle under a cairn of stones, was brought 
back at the request of his mother and buried in the church 
he had lately finished at Waltham. According to some 
authorities, the Conqueror, although he permitted this 
burial, seems to have treated the place with a certain hard- 
ness and unfairness. Although the canons appear to have 
kept their lands intact, William is said to have dispos- 
sessed them of most of the movable wealth with which 

[329] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

Harold had enriched them, and to have carried plate, 
jewels and other movable property off to Normandy. 
The list given by the scribe of these riches is not uninter- 
esting. There were, we are told, seven shrines for relics, 
three gold and four silver gilt, all ornamented with pre- 
cious stones, four Gospel books bound in gold and silver 
and jewelled, four great thuribles of gold and silver, six 
candlesticks, two of gold and the rest of silver, three great 
gold and silver jugs of Greek work, four crosses wrought 
in gold and silver with jewels. There were also " most 
precious chasubles, worked with gold and gems," etc. 

The college of secular canons established by Harold at 
Waltham remained in existence for a century after the 
Conquest. As regards the buildings, in 1 125-6 the 
apsidal choir was removed in order to make way for 
another. Before the work was completed, however, the 
King had obtained permission from the Pope to substitute 
Augustinian canons for the secular priests of Harold's 
foundation. This was done in 1 177, and on Whitsun Eve 
the bishop of London inducted the Regular canons to the 
church. The religious came from Osney, Cirencester 
and St. Osyth's, and the first temporary superior was ap- 
pointed in the person of Ralph, a canon of Cirencester. 
In the same year, however, Walter de Gaunt was made 
first abbot of the house, and King Henry II, besides con- 
firming the charter of the Confessor, added to the endow- 
ments of the Augustinian abbey. In 1 182 a great meeting 
of ecclesiastics and nobles was held in Waltham Abbey 
church in furtherance of the Crusades. Henry II, who 

[330] 



WALTHAM ABBEY 

presided in person as an example to his people to take 
part in this great movement of Christendom against the 
Turks, promised to devote 2,000 marks of silver and 500 
marks of gold to the expedition. At the same time he 
manifested his desire to rebuild the church at Waltham, 
and the north clerestory may be a portion of what was 
then projected. 

In 1222 Hugh de Nerville, one of the most popular 
heroes of the age, was buried at Waltham Holy Cross. 
Matthew Paris tells us that his prowess was proved in 
the Holy Land by his attacking and killing a lion single- 
handed. The same authority says that he was laid to 
rest " in a noble sculptured marble tomb," which no 
doubt went the way of most monuments at the suppres- 
sion of the abbey in the sixteenth century. 

The new choir was finished in 1242, and dedicated by 
the Bishop of Norwich in the presence of many bishops 
who had assembled for the consecration of St. Paul's, 
London, which took place at this time. Now also the 
western arch of the tower was filled up with the reredos 
of the parish church which was the nave. This nave is 
mainly the work of the eleventh century and remains 
much as it was; the present tower was added in the reign 
of Queen Mary. The channel-cut pillars are said to re- 
mind people of Durham Cathedral, and both were prob- 
ably built about the same time in the reign of Harold. 

Richard II, whilst residing in the place within the 
abbey precincts called ^^ Rome-land," received the news 
of the rising of Wat Tyler's people. For sixteen weeks 

[331] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

the body of Edward I, in 1307, lay ''beside the tomb of 
Harold and was then taken to his burial past the beautiful 
cross which he had raised in loving memory of Queen 
Eleanor." 

Besides the church or rather the nave of the church, the 
mutilated abbey gateway also still exists, and Harold's 
bridge still spans a neighbouring brook. The conventual 
buildings have long disappeared together with the greater 
portion of the church. Robert Fuller was the last abbot, 
having received the charge on September 4, 1526. He 
subsequently became prior of St. Bartholomew's, Smith- 
field, and held the two offices together. On March 23, 
1539, he surrendered the abbey into the King's hands, the 
rental then being computed at over £900 a year. The 
site, etc., of the house was almost immediately granted by 
Henry VHI to Sir Anthony Denny for thirty-one years, 
and on his death his widow purchased the property from 
the Crown for over £3,000, from whom the present owner, 
Sir H. Wade, is descended. 

There is no detailed account of the work of dismantling 
Waltham Abbey at the suppression, nor of the means 
taken to get rid of the superfluous buildings. It was in 
the hands of one whose name appears on many of the 
accounts and who once signs himself " Francis Jobson, 
Gentleman." It is probable that the portion of the great 
church which we still possess was saved from the wreck 
by being claimed by the people of Waltham as the parish 
church of the place. Francis Jobson seems to have cal- 
culated the value of the lead upon the whole churchy 

[332] 



WALTHAM ABBEY 

which he sets down as being 400 fodders, and worth at 
least £1,600. He counts the value of twelve bells to be 
broken up and sold as bell metal. At this same time, 
Michaelmas, 1539, he estimates that lead and bells from 
the Essex religious houses to the value of £3,339 6s. 6d. 
remained unsold. The goods of Waltham Holy Cross 
which had been disposed of had produced £202 i6s. lod. 
and the buildings, etc., another £599 7s. 3Jd. Besides 
this 1,169 ounces of plate, consisting of 479 ounces of sil- 
ver gilt; 251 of parcel gilt and 439 of silver had been 
sent to the King. Also there had been reserved for His 
Majesty "a cup called a serpentine"; nine copes, three 
chasubles and three tunicles. Two of these copes were 
of red tissue with the images of the Five Wounds, etc. 

Sir Richard Ryche, Knight, the Chancellor of the 
Court of Augmentation, subsequently granted to the abbot 
of Waltham and his fellow canon pensions for having sur- 
rendered their abbey into the King's hands. 



[333] 



WAVERLEY 

DEAR Farnham, in Surrey, stand the few 
remnants of the Abbey of Waverley. The river 
Wey flows by its site, and a mile or two away 
to the west the hills, which form the well- 
known " Hogsback," rise from the plain and stretch away 
towards Guildford and Dorking. Mr. Francis Joseph 
Baigent, in his monograph on this monastery, says of it 
that the fragments of the buildings certainly do not en- 
able us to realise that upon this spot there once stood a 
magnificent and grand church of Early English style, ex- 
ceeding in its dimensions several of our cathedrals, and 
larger than the abbey church of Romsey or the priory 
churches of Christ Church, Hampshire, and St. Saviour's, 
Southwick. In length the church at Waverley was 322 
feet, and the transept measured 165 feet across. From 
the west end to the transept crossing the measurement was 
195 feet, and the general dimensions of this fine church 
were almost identical with the great minster at Fountains, 
which is still sufficiently intact to display its noble propor- 
tions. The latter is said to have been forty years build- 
ing, whilst the erection of the former occupied seventy- 
five years. 

[334] 




'^ 





flpCB^7MBI^^^^9!He ■■ . 



WAVERLEY 

Waverley was the first abbey of Cistercians founded 
in England, and for this reason its abbot had pre-eminence 
over all the other superiors of the Order in this country. 
IWilliam Giffard, the second Bishop of Winchester after 
the Conquest, brought over these v^hite monks from 
Aumone — one of their monasteries in Normandy. They 
had been founded about thirty years before by Robert, 
Abbot of Molesme, influenced by Stephen Harding, an 
Englishman and a professed monk of Sherbourne. The 
Order quickly spread. " The members," says a modern 
writer, " soon became noted for the greatest excellence in" 
the professions of agriculture, architecture and com- 
merce; they established granges or farms upon their out- 
lying estates, for the more effectual utilisation of the pro- 
ductions of the land; their stately style of architecture — 
combining use with elegance and avoiding unnecessary 
display, as illustrated in the present day by the ruins of 
Furness, Melrose, Kirkstall, Fountains and Tintern — has 
been alike the wonder and envy of architects; their mer- 
chandise of wool and corn was noted for its superiority 
over that of less assiduous farmers." 

The foundations of the Abbey of the Blessed Mary of 
Waverley were laid by Bishop Gififard on November 24, 
1 1 28. Furness, colonised from Savigny, became Cister- 
cian about the same time; and Tintern, Rievaulx, Foun- 
tains and others quickly followed, until by the end of the 
century about 120 separate houses of the Order were 
flourishing on English soil. According to the old saying: 
Bernardus vales amabat — Bernard loved the valleys — the 

[ 337 ] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

Cistercian houses were first planted in solitudes and in 
out-of-the-way and uncultivated places. By a rule of the 
Order these foundations were all placed under the patron- 
age of the Blessed Virgin, and it was a rule that no other 
monastery, even of its own Order, was to be built within a 
certain distance. 

Waverley quickly gave evidence of life and sent out 
several colonies of sons to found daughter houses : Garen- 
don, in Leicestershire, was the first, in 1133, followed 
three years later by Ford, in Devon; after which it estab- 
lished Combe, in Warwickshire, and Thame, in Oxford- 
shire. These daughter houses in turn founded seven Cis- 
tercian abbeys, so that in all eleven monasteries, directly 
or indirectly, came out of Waverley. 

Bishop GifTard, the founder, did not long survive the 
establishment of the white monks at Waverley, dying 
within two months of the date assigned to the foundation. 
Bishop Henry de Blois, who succeeded him in the See of 
Winchester, was a Benedictine monk and brother of King 
Stephen, who had been Abbot of Glastonbury. He 
proved himself a great benefactor to the infant com- 
munity, and gave the monks lands and the right of free 
pasturage, and his example in this was followed by others. 

The story of the house from its first foundation in 11 28 
to its suppression in the sixteenth century does not contain 
very much of general interest. This will always be the 
case in an observant monastery, as the tendency of human 
nature in all ages is to note and comment upon all irregu- 
larity of life rather than upon regularity. The vigour 

C338] 



WAVERLEY 

and popularity of the house, however, are evinced, not 
alone by the colonies it sent forth, but by the fact that in 
1 1 87 its community consisted of seventy choir monks and 
126 lay brethren. 

The leader of the colony from Aumone, Abbot John, 
died at Midhurst, in Sussex, on his way back from the 
General Chapter at Citeaux, almost directly the founda- 
tions of Waverley had been laid. During the abbacy 
of the second abbot, Gilbert, the four foundations above 
recorded were made. The story of the troubles of one 
body of these colonists is instructive. The twelve monks 
arrived at their new home with their abbot, Richard, on 
May 3, 1 136, and little more than a year later their 
founder and benefactor died before he had made adequate 
provision for the community. The spot chosen was at a 
place called Brightley, in Devonshire, not far from Oke- 
hampton, where the connection of the monks with the 
place is still recorded by the name " Abbey Ford Wood." 
The situation was barren and deserted, and after the death 
of their friend the community was destitute of help and 
unable to find even the wherewith to live upon. After 
five years of hard struggles the monks determined to 
abandon their endeavour, to acknowledge their failure, 
and to return to their mother house of Waverley. They 
had already gone part of their way thither when a bene- 
factress unexpectedly appeared, gave them her manor 
house for a time, and then built them a monastery after- 
wards to be known as Ford Abbey, from the passage over 
the rive Axe, which then existed at this spot. 

[ 339 ] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

vThe annals of Waverley in 1201 record a terrific storm 
on July 8. The buildings of the monastery were inun- 
dated and much damaged, whilst the standing crops with 
their hay and flax were entirely destroyed. This brought 
upon them such poverty and destitution that the monks 
were for a time obliged to disperse and seek refuge in 
other houses of their Order. In 1203, however, their sit- 
uation seems to have improved somewhat, since in that 
year William, rector of Broadwater, in Sussex, began to 
set the foundation of their church for them. In 12 14 sufl[i- 
cient progress had been made to enable Aylbin, Bishop of 
Ferns, to consecrate five altars in the church, to dedicate 
the cemetery and to " bless and touch with chrism " the 
consecration crosses. Three more altars were dedicated in 
1226, and two again in 123 1, so that in the great monastic 
church of Waverley, as we know from the annals, there 
were at least eleven altars. 

\In 1233 the annals chronicle another destructive storm 
on July II. The cloisters were turned into rivers, we are 
told, and the floods swept right through the buildings, 
doing great damage. Bridges were carried away, stone 
walls fell before the pressure of water, which in many 
places was as much as eight feet deep. 

On September 21, 1278, the great church, being entirely 
finished and out of debt, was solemnly dedicated by 
Nicholas de Ely, Bishop of Winchester. Six abbots and 
a great number of ecclesiastics and lay people were 
present. It was calculated that at the banquet after the 
ceremony 7,000 people were entertained in the monastery, 

[340] 



WAVERLEY 

and for the eight days which followed all who came were 
refreshed at the cost of the Bishop of Winchester, the con- 
stant friend and benefactor of the monks. Two years 
later, on his death, Bishop de Ely was found to have 
selected Waverley as his burial place, and he was the only 
Bishop of Winchester in pre-Reformation times who 
selected a burial place out of his own cathedral. 

^The great pestilence of 1349 carried off several of the 
community and many servants of Waverley Abbey. 
Abbot John, who had been elected May 14, 1344, was 
one of the first victims in the early part of the year 1349. 
He was followed by another abbot named John, who was 
blessed by Bishop de Edyndon in his private chapel at 
Esher on May 24. This abbot ruled the monastery till 
1 36 1, when he, too, fell a victim to the second outbreak of 
the plague. 

We may pass over two centuries of cloister life at Wav- 
erley and come to the sixteenth century. William 
Alynge, the last abbot, was chosen about 1533, and so at 
once came upon troublesome times. In 1535 Henry VHI 
constituted Thomas Crumwell his Vicar-General in all 
ecclesiastical matters and Visitor-General of the monas- 
teries. Crumwell forthwith appointed certain men on 
whom he could rely to proceed to the work of examining 
the various religious houses and colleges. The three most 
notorious amongst these deputies were named London, 
Layton and Legh. In October, 1535, as Layton found 
that he would not be comfortable were he to stop at " a 
priory of minors and a priory of canons which lay towards 

[341] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

Chichester," he pushed on, as he told Crumwell, " to an 
abbey of Cistercians, called Waverley." 

Apparently the doctor did not enjoy his stay at the 
abbey, as an existing letter shows. This paper is also in- 
teresting as proving that at this time, through the tyranny 
of the Crown in forcing lay servants upon the monasteries, 
the unfortunate monks were no longer masters in their 
own houses. " I have licensed the bringer, the abbot of 
Waverley," he writes, " to repair unto you for liberty to 
survey his husbandry, whereupon consisteth the wealth 
of his monastery. The man is honest, but none of the 
children of Solomon : every monk within his house is his 
fellow and every servant his master. Mr. Treasurer and 
other gentlemen hath put servants unto him, whom the 
poor [man] dare neither command nor displease. Yes- 
terday, early in the morning, sitting in my chamber in 
examination, I could neither get bread, nor drink, neither 
fire of those knaves, till I was fretished [i.e., numb with 
cold] ; and the abbot durst not speak to them. I called 
all before me and forgot their names, but took from every 
man the keys of his office and made new officers for my 
time here, perchance as stark knaves as the other. It 
shall be expedient for you to give him a lesson and tell 
the poor fool what to do. Among his monks I have 
found corruption of the worst sort, because they dwell in 
the forest of all company." 

This visit was quickly followed in the early spring of 
1536 by the Act of Parliament dissolving all monas- 
teries below the value of £200 a year. As the net income 

[342] 



WAVERLEY 

of Waverley was according to the Valor EcclesiasticuSy 
only £178 8s. 3-Jd., it must have been at once apparent to 
the abbot and his community that their doom was pro- 
nounced. William, Abbot Alyne, however, endeavoured 
to avert the impending suppression by sending to Crum- 
well an earnest and touching appeal. " Pleaseth your 
mastership," he writes, '' I received your letters of the 7th 
day of this present month, and hath endeavoured myself 
to accomplish the contents of them, and have sent your 
mastership the true extent, value, and account of our mon- 
astery. Beseeching your good mastership, for the love 
of Christ's passion, to help to the preservation of this poor 
monastery that we your beadsmen may remain in the serv- 
ice of God, with the meanest living that any poor man 
may live with in the world. So to continue in the service 
of Almighty Jesus and to pray for the estate of our prince 
and your mastership. Therefore instantly praying you 
— and my poor brethren with weeping eyes desire you to 
help them, in this world no creatures in more trouble. 
And so we remain depending upon the comfort that shall 
come to us from you — serving God daily at Waverley." 

The appeal had no success; and it is difficult to suppose 
that by this time the monks themselves were really in any 
doubt as to their ultimate fate. Waverley was one of the 
first to fall, for as early as July 20, 1536, it was suppressed 
and the inmates distributed among other houses of the 
Order, for which there was some short respite. The 
same day the King granted the site of the abbey, its build- 
ings, etc., to Sir William Fitz-William, the treasurer of 

[ 343 ] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

his household, who, as appears in the letter from Layton 
^iven above, had taken such an interest in the place that 
he had already quartered his servants upon the abbot, a 
year before he had got legal possession of his expected 
prize. The fact that Sir William Fitz-William at once 
obtained possession of the abbey " in as full and ample a 
manner as William Alynge, the late abbot," possessed it 
and that he no doubt immediately entered upon his new 
acquisition, explains why on the Rolls of Ministers' Ac- 
counts there are no details of the sales of the movable 
goods or of the wrecking of the church and of the domestic 
buildings. Time, however, has not failed to bring a dire 
destruction upon the whole, and now only two fragments 
of buildings, both Early English, remain, abutting on the 
river Wey, and Waverley is probably best known to the 
present generation as that religious house which gave to 
Sir Walter Scott a title for his immortal series of 
romances 



[344] 



WESTMINSTER 

©HERE is but one Westminster. Other monas- 
teries can claim better positions, or longer his- 
tories or perhaps some more wonderful or 
special feature of architecture, but none can 
recall historic memories like Westminster. It is a place 
the influence of which grows upon the mind the more it 
is known and the deeper it is studied. The inspiring 
height of the nave and choir; the wonderful transept 
front; the broken pile of chapels overtopped by Henry 
VII's crowning work; the interior so grand, so lofty, so 
graceful; the mysterious apsidal presbytery with its radi- 
ating chapels; all these features of the buildings and 
many more are less impressive even than the story which 
attaches to the walls, and which makes Westminster the 
most marvellous National Monument in the world. 
Here most of our kings were crowned, and here the most 
illustrious of our dead have found their last resting places. 
The history of St. Peter's, Westminster, goes back into 
the mists of legend. Some have spoken of a church as 
existing on an island in the marsh lands of Westminster 
in the early days of British Christianity; others have put 
its foundation in the times of Ethelbert of Kent and the 

[345] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

first Saxon converts, whilst William of Malmesbury gives 
the credit to St. Mellitus himself. One pretty and ancient 
story recounts the supernatural consecration of the church 
on the night before St. Mellitus himself had arranged 
to perform the ceremony. Edric, the ferryman, it is said, 
on that night brought over the river from Lambeth a 
strange priest, who proved to be St. Peter himself. Hav- 
ing ordered the fisherman to remain, the stranger betook 
himself to the humble church on Thorney island. 
Thence in a brief time afterwards came the sound of 
singing, the gleam of tapers and the smell of incense, and 
the boatman venturing near, saw that an innumerable host 
from Heaven accompanied the Apostle in the ceremonial, 
whilst every thing and person was illuminated by a super- 
natural light. The dedication having been accomplished, 
St. Peter returned to the fisherman and declaring who he 
was, told him to go at daybreak and seek Mellitus and tell 
him that in proof of what he had done the bishop would 
find the marks of consecration crosses on the walls of the 
church. As a further pledge St. Peter bade the man sink 
his net in the river, and carry to the bishop one of the 
fish he should take. This he did, and captured such a 
netful of salmon that his boat could hardly contain them. 
For centuries after, in memory of this, the monks enjoyed 
a tithe of fish in the river from Jenlade to Staines, and 
every year a Thames salmon, the first of the season, was 
offered at the High Altar, and the fisherman who brought 
it was feasted in the hall. Only less wonderful than the 
tale of the dedication was the story that St. John the 

[346] 



WESTMINSTER 

Evangelist, in the pilgrimage which legend assigns to 
him until the second coming of our Lord, once found 
his way to Westminster and trod the aisles of the church. 
Hardly more certain than these pretty legends are the 
indications of the history of Thorney in Saxon times. The 
restorations supposed to have been made by Kings Offa 
and Edgar and even the charters of St. Dunstan would 
appear to be open to some suspicion, although there is 
every reason to think that there was a monastic establish- 
ment already existing when King Edward the Confessor, 
the real founder of Westminster, built the first great 
church on Thorney island. This great work the pious 
King undertook in place of a vow of pilgrimage to Rome, 
which he had made whilst in exile. At great cost the 
building was finished in a very few years, and it was alto- 
gether constructed in a style at that time new in England; 
it was the first Norman church ever erected in England. 
One writer describes it as a building " supported by many 
pillars and arches," and Matthew Paris speaks of it as 
having been built " in a new style," which, he adds, 
" served as a pattern much followed in the erection of 
other churches." A description written at the time is as 
follows: "The principal area or nave of the church 
stood on lofty arches of hewn stone, jointed together in 
the neatest manner, the vault was covered with a strong 
double-arched roof of stone on both sides. The cross, 
which embraced the choir, and by its transept supported a 
high tower in the middle, rose first with a low strong 
arch, and then swelled out with several winging stair- 

[349] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

cases to the single wall, up to the wooden roof which 
was carefully covered with lead." Besides the tower 
spoken of here St. Edward's church had two other towers 
at the western end and an apse at the eastern end. The 
Confessor also built the cloisters and a round Chapter 
House, whilst the undercroft of his dormitory still exists. 

Having completed his church, Edward the Confessor 
summoned the nobility and clergy to the dedication. On 
Christmas Eve, 1065, however, before the date of the 
ceremony, he fell ill, and for that reason anticipated the 
day appointed for the solemnity. He had only time to 
hold it, and thus to witness the completion of his work 
when he died on January 5, 1066, and was buried in the 
new church the following day, the feast of the Epiphany. - 
Thirty-six years after, under Gilbert, the Norman abbot, 
the tomb was opened and the body found perfectly 
incorrupt. 

The next great event in the history of the church of 
Westminster is the building erected by Henry III. In 
1 22 1 the new work was commenced at the Lady chapel, 
and the first stone was laid that year on Whitsun Eve by 
the King in person. The chapel then erected was sub- 
sequently taken down only to make way for that of Henry 
VII. Twenty- five years later, in 1245, ^^^ ^.ing, Henry 
III, pulled down the greater part of the church. 
Matthew Paris says he ordered the east end, the tower 
and transept to be taken down and rebuilt in a more 
elegant style at his own expense. It is difficult to say 
what the work cost from first to last. In 1254, nine years 

[350] 



WESTMINSTER 

after it had been begun, we have the barons of the ex- 
chequer ordered to apply to it the annual sum of 3,000 
marks, and it is calculated that during the twelve years 
of the abbacy of Richard de Crokesley the sum of £29,600 
was spent in money of that time. 

The result we may rejoice in to-day. " It has," says a 
writer, " all that soaring loftiness, the wonderful charm 
and beauty of art, ever fresh to the eye and educated taste, 
which mark it out from all others, though they may be 
richer or vaster in dimension." The most marked fea- 
ture of the whole structure is the French arrangement of 
an apse and chapels radiating from the aisles, but in the 
carrying out of this design, Westminster shows an inde- 
pendent English judgment working on a foreign plan. 
The spaciousness of the triforia is said to have been 
^* specially designed to accommodate thousands as wit- 
nesses of coronations and funerals of kings and queens in 
the chief national church." 

Matthew Paris gives a minute account of the trans- 
lation to Westminster of a relic of the Precious Blood in 
1247. This treasure had been brought back from the 
Holy Land, well authenticated, as a present to the King, 
and Henry determined to present it to Westminster. So 
the day after the feast of the translation of the Confessor, 
the King directed the London clergy to assemble at St. 
Paul's, where the reliquary had been previously placed, 
and to form there a procession in copes and surplices, with 
crosses and banners, etc. He himself, in the dress of a 
poor man and on foot, carried the reliouary. The monks 

[351] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

of Westminster with many bishops, abbots and others 
came to meet him as far as Durham House, and then 
joined in bringing the relic with honour to the abbey. 
There at the High Altar the King made his offering of it 
to St. Edward and to the monks of the monastery. 

Matthew Paris, who gives the account, notes an inci- 
dent as regards himself. He was present at the ceremony 
with three companion monks of St. Albans, and when 
the King had sat down, seeing the historian standing by 
and recognising him, he called him by name and made 
him sit at his side on the step of the throne. He then 
turned to him and asked him if he had seen everything 
and remembered what to write, and on Matthew replying 
that he had taken note of all that had happened, the King 
expressed his great satisfaction, and added, " I beg, and 
in begging order you, to write fully and expressly about 
all this, and to insert the account in a book," that it may 
always be remembered by posterity. 

During the abbacy of Richard Ware, in 1268, the pave- 
ment in the sanctuary was laid down. Abbot Ware had 
been in Rome in 1267, and it is thought that he probably 
brought back with him the material for this work and 
possibly also the workmen. To-day a sufficient portion 
of this beautiful inlaid pavement remains to suggest its 
former splendour. A second mosaic pavement of the 
date of Edward I may be seen in the Confessor's chapel. 
The altar reredos is fifteenth-century work and has two 
doors to it, which lead to the chapel of the shrine, the ex- 
quisite base of which was the work of " Pietro, citizen of 

[352] 




WESTMINSTER ABBEY : THE SOUTH AMBULATORY 



mm 



WESTMINSTER 

Rome." The remains of the Confessor were translated to 
this new shrine on October 13, 1269. This event is thus 
commemorated, " the 13th day of October, the King lette 
translate with great solemnity the holy body of Saint 
Edward, King and Confessor, that before laid in the side 
of the choir, into the chapel at the back of the High Altar 
of Westminster Abbey, and there laid it in a rich shrine." 

In the year 1296 King Edward I brought to England 
the regalia of Scotland, with the well-known stone of 
Scone, used at all the coronations in that latter kingdom. 
This was placed in the abbey church, and is still preserved 
beneath the coronation chair. 

It is impossible, of course, to detail the events connected 
with the abbey in any sequence, within the narrow limits 
of a chapter. Simon Langham became abbot in 1349 on 
the death of his predecessor, Symon de Bircheston, during 
the great plague. Westminster was grievously visited by 
this sickness. On March 10, 1349, in proroguing Parlia- 
ment for the second time, the King declared that it was 
worse than ever. Some weeks later the monastery was at- 
tacked; early in May Abbot Bircheston died at Hamp- 
stead, and almost at the same time twenty-seven of the 
monks were committed to a common grave in the south 
cloister. To relieve the urgent needs of the house and 
those round about it £315 13s. 8d. worth of plate and 
ornaments were sold. Simon Langham had only become 
a monk in 1335, but he early manifested his powers, and 
had already succeeded the prior, carried off by sickness, 
in April, 1349, when in May on the death of the abbot 

[355] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

he was chosen in his place. He quickly rose to the high- 
est position in church and state, in 1368 being created 
Cardinal. His body rests at Westminster in the chapel 
of St. Benedict, beneath a tomb of alabaster. The his- 
torian of Westminster says that from first to last Cardinal 
Langham's benefactions to his monastery amounted to the 
sum of £10,800. 

Nicholas Litlington, who became abbot in 1362, added 
to the buildings by his provident care. The great hall of 
the abbey was his work, the Jerusalem chamber and what 
is now the dormitory of the boys, also two sides of the 
cloister, the south and west walks, as we have them now. 
Beyond his additions to the buildings. Abbot Litlington 
gave much to the sacristy in the way of plate and precious 
vestments. 

At Westminster there was a celebrated and frequently 
used sanctuary. On the return of Henry VI to the throne 
in 1740, for instance, Elizabeth, Queen of Edward IV, 
took sanctuary, and whilst still here a prince was born 
" and christened in the abbey," whose godfathers were 
the abbot and prior of the said place. The prince in time 
became King Edward V, when the abbot, Thomas 
Millyng, his godfather, was promoted to the See of Here- 
ford. In 1483 John Estney, Millyng's successor, again 
received the Queen of Edward IV into sanctuary, whither 
she had fled with five princesses on the arrest of Earl 
Rivers. The news was taken to Archbishop Rotherham 
the Chancellor, who was then at York Place, near West- 
minster. " Whereupon," says the historian, " the Bishop 

[356] 




u 

Oh 
< 

u 

IT) 



WESTMINSTER 

called up his servants before daylight . . . and came be- 
fore day to the Queen, about whom he found much heavi- 
ness, rumble, haste, business, conveyance and carriage of 
her stuff into sanctuary. Every man was busy to carry, 
bear and convey stuff, chests and ferdelles; no man was 
unoccupied and some carried more than they were com- 
manded to another place. The Queen sat alone below on 
the rushes all desolate and dismayed. . . . And when he 
opened his windows and looked on the Thames, he might 
see the river full of boats of the Duke of Gloucester his 
servants watching that no person should go to sanctuary 
nor none should pass unsearched." 

It was just before this time that under the patronage of 
of Abbot Estney, Caxton began to exercise here the art of 
printing, and set up the first printing press in England 
within the precincts of Westminster Abbey. In the year 
1500 John Islip was unanimously elected abbot. At that 
period it seemed almost certain that Henry VI would 
have been canonised and the abbot and community peti- 
tioned the King to remove the body from Windsor where 
it was buried. It is said that the monks did remove it at 
a cost of £500, and on January 24, the following year, 
1502, Abbot Islip, assisted by several of the King's min- 
isters, laid the foundation of the new Lady chapel, which 
was to be built by King Henry VII as a shrine for the re- 
mains of his saintly predecessor. The Lady chapel built 
by Henry III and a tavern called "The White Rose" 
were pulled down to make way for it. When the chapel 
was finished, the charges are said to have amounted to 

[ 359 ] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

some £14,000 of money in those days. Estates had been 
given by the King to support the expenses, and to help 
the endowment Henry VH procured from the Pope per- 
mission to suppress two religious houses, Mottisford in 
Hampshire and SufBeld in Buckinghamshire, and to de- 
vote their revenues to his foundation. In 15 18 Cardinals 
Wolsey and Compeggio, with joint legislative powers, 
visited Westminster, and Polydore Vergil particularly 
noted the strictness of the life led there by the monks. 

In 1536 the monks were invited to exchange certain 
manors belonging to Westminster for the lands of the 
priory of Hurley in Berkshire. At this time the dis- 
solved Convent garden, now known as Covent Garden, 
appear to have passed from the abbey to the Crown. 
Three years later, on January 16, 1540, the abbey was sur- 
rendered to the Crown by the abbot and twenty-four 
monks, and, as an abbey, ceased to exist. As it formed 
part of the King's declared project to create a bishopric 
out of the abbey, the buildings were not considered, as 
in other cases, " unnecessary,'' and so '' defaced." West- 
minster was thus saved, although despoiled of its most 
precious treasures. In the list of plate two or three items 
that were reserved to the King's use would be particularly 
valuable could we but have them to-day; " a cup called 
* the maser belle or St. Edward's maser'; a cross of 
beryl " and " a dish or basin of precious stones called 
agate, ornamented with gold, precious stones and pearls." 
Of altar furniture carried off there is specially noted: 
"Two altar hangings, called frontals, of cloth of gold 

[360] 



WESTMINSTER 

worked with lions, fleur-de-lys and the arms of the late 
Abbot Islip." " Five copes of needlework (one called 
St. Peter's cope, one cope with angels of pearl, and three 
others called Jesses) with two tunicles; one chasuble with 
seven silver gilt buttons, together with albs, stoles and 
mantles of the same work." Sixteen copes of cloth of 
gold of various colours; one of blue with a chasuble, etc. 
These were carried away " for the King's use," but what 
became of them " history relateth not.' 

I might here close this account of Westminster Abbey, 
as the " new foundation " has obviously no part with the 
old, and the very name " abbey" is now merely a memo- 
rial of the past and a record of the " passing of the monk." 
But a word may be usefully said of the brief return of the 
Benedictine monks to their old quarters during the reign 
of Queen Mary. Dr. Feckenham, at the time dean of 
St. Paul's, had been a monk at Evesham before the sup- 
pression of that monastery, and on the proposal to re- 
establish the monks at Westminster, he resigned his dean- 
ery at St. Paul's and becoming abbot of Westminster 
began the old routine of monastic observance. On the 
accession of Queen Elizabeth the abbey was again speed- 
ily suppressed. 



[361] 



WELBECK 

^^I^^^HE abbey of Premonstratensian canons of 
M C| Welbeck was first established in the parish of 
^^^^^ Cuckney, six miles from Welbeck in the county 
of Nottingham, by a colony from Newhouse 
in 1 153. The founders were originally Richard le 
Flemyng and Thomas de Cuckney, but in 1329 John 
Hothum, Bishop of Ely, bought the manor from the heirs 
of de Flemyng and other lands and advowsons. The 
manor and the lands he settled upon the canons, and he 
thus became acknowledged as the second founder of Wel- 
beck Abbey, which was placed under the patronage of St. 
James the Apostle, the saint to whom the old church of 
the place had been dedicated. In process of time Wel- 
beck Abbey became possessed of ten parochial churches 
and two chapelries. Five of the parishes were served by 
the canons themselves as perpetual vicars. Welbeck 
Abbey claimed to have established nine other Premon- 
stratensian houses, but in regard to two of these, namely 
Hales Owen and Titchfield, this pretension could not be 
sustained. Its position and influence were, perhaps, 
higher than those of other establishments of the Order in 
England, and before the sixteenth century it became, 

[362] 



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WELBECK 

tactily at least, acknowledged as the chief English house. 
The gift of the Bishop of Ely in 1329 entailed many 
obligations upon the community. They undertook, in 
the first place, to find eight canons who should offer up 
prayers for King Edward III and his grandfather, and 
for many specified benefactors. They promised to pray 
for the bishop during life, and to celebrate forever his 
anniversary when dead in the most solemn way possible, 
and by giving doles to the poor. Whenever any of the 
eight appointed canons should be unable to say Mass, 
others were to be named to the duty. 

The abbot and his canons further promised that they 
would themselves never do anything to try and get rid of 
this obligation or to lighten it. Every new abbot, before 
the community made their obedience to him at his instal- 
lation to office, was to swear solemnly to keep this promise, 
and so was every novice before being admitted to the habit 
of the house. In order that the provisions of the agree- 
ment might never be forgotten, the deed made between 
the Bishop of Ely and the Abbot of Welbeck was to be 
publicly read in Chapter before the brethren each year 
on the day of All Souls. 

Our knowledge of the history of Welbeck during the 
400 years of its existence is mainly derived from the visita- 
tions and other documents preserved by Bishop Red- 
man, the representative of the Abbot of Premontre in Eng- 
land, for the last part of the fifteenth century. A few 
earlier papers are to be found in the same Registers, and 
from one of them an interesting insight into the procedure 

[365] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

at an election at Welbeck may be obtained. John de 
Norton, the late abbot, had died, and at once the canons 
acquainted the abbot of the mother house, Robert, Abbot 
of Newhouse, so that he might come to Welbeck and hold . 
the election of a successor. April 13, 1450, was ap- 
pointed for that purpose, and at this time John, Abbot of 
Dale, was also in the house. After the High Mass of the 
Holy Spirit had been sung, all the canons assembled in 
the Chapter House, where, after prayer and considera- 
tion, the community begged the two abbots to make choice 
of a fitting superior for them. 

After some hesitation these two prelates consented to 
this course, and at the end of a good deal of consultation 
with the fathers of the abbey, they chose one of the Wel- 
beck canons, named John Green, to fill the vacant office. 
Upon this, the fact of the election was published in the 
Chapter, and, the unwilling consent of the elect having 
been obtained, the Abbot of Newhouse, as " the father 
abbot," confirmed the act on behalf of the Order. All 
the community then proceeded to the church, singing the 
Te Deum, where they installed the newly-elected abbot 
and put him into possession of the church by placing the 
bell-cords and the keys of the doors in his hands. Then 
one by one the canons came, and, kneeling, renewed their 
obedience. The obedientiaries also, as a sign of obedi- 
ence and subjection, laid their various keys at the feet 
of the new superior. On the part of the elect, before 
the community had done their obedience, the official 
document of the election declares that John Green, the 

[366] 



WELBECK 

elect, took an oath to carry out the agreement between 
Welbeck and Bishop John Hothum. 

On May 6, 1462, Bishop Richard Redman made his 
first official visitation to Welbeck. He found this same 
John Green still abbot, but very old and infirm. The 
house was in a most excellent state, and all that the visitor 
could find to blame was a laxity in regard to the rule of 
^lence. " Otherwise," he says, " the members of this 
community are united to their superior in all charity, 
brotherly love, and peace and manifest themselves as true 
sons of obedience." The choir duties are carried out 
exactly {ad unguem)^ and the old abbot is the first to bear 
all the burdens. 

The next recorded visit was made in 1478: William 
Burton was then abbot, and the community consisted of 
eighteen canons and two novices. Bishop Redman 
thought that the abbot was trying to govern too much 
according to his own will and without officials, and by 
an exercise of his visitorial powers the bishop filled up 
the vacant offices and warned Br. John Warburton, whom 
he appointed circator, that it was his duty to see that the 
cloister doors were fastened at night and at the proper 
times of the day. He pointed out to the abbot that there 
were many repairs that should be seen to at once if the 
house was not to be allowed to fall into ruin. The canons 
were to rise for the night office and were not to shirk this 
duty, and, as a report had reached him that some of the 
community had gone hunting and shooting arrows, the 
visitor commanded that this should not be allowed to any. 

[367 ] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

There are indications here that the rule of the abbot 
was not what it should be. It was at best a great contrast 
to that of Abbot John Green, and four years later, when 
Bishop Redman came again he had to take drastic 
measures to save Welbeck from ruin. He found that 
Abbot Burton had dissipated the goods of the house; 
buildings were in ruin for want of repair, and lands, 
woods and tithes belonging to the community had been 
pledged without the consent of the brethren. More than 
this, nearly all the plate of the monastery had been pawned 
or got rid of in some way or other, so that only one 
silver cup could be produced to the visitor. As for the 
abbey buildings, they stood in urgent need of repair, as 
nothing had been done to them during this administra- 
tion. The woods had been cut down without considera- 
tion to make money; the abbot also had sold all the oxen 
and cattle and sheep of the abbey, and the stores were so 
•empty that it was frequently hard to find necessary sup- 
plies of oil, wax and wine. Welbeck was indeed in a 
state of desolation by the misrule of the superior. But 
there was worse ; Abbot Burton was defamed in the neigh- 
bourhood for his bad life, and the visitor, after thorough 
inquiry, found that the report was well founded and 
proven. He at once removed him from his ofBce and 
sent him to do penance at Barlings Abbey for the restjof 
Jhis life. 

For the next eight or ten years the abbey does not 
appear to have been able to recover from this period of 
misrule. Though wrong doers are always punished, and 

[368] 



WELBECK 

punished severely, the laxity appears at the periodic visits 
in several minor matters; games for money were at one 
time becoming common and of course, prohibited; too 
many of the community were going to the " meat room " 
and shirking the regular fasts ; the same was seen in regard 
to a catching slackness in rising for midnight matins. In 
1494, however, Bishop Redman is pleased to declare that 
he found everything again in an excellent state, and that 
he could see nothing to blame or to correct. The list of 
the community at this time shows more vigour than on 
previous visitations, as there are no less than five novices, 
all of whom are found subsequently to have persevered in 
the regular life. Three years later, September 3, 1497, 
Welbeck has the same excellent report, and in 1500, the 
last visitation of which we have any record, beyond the 
necessity of some minor corrections. Bishop Redman is 
able to give the same good account of the abbey. 

One of the last abbots of Welbeck was John Maney, 
bishop of Elphin, who became commendatory of Welbeck 
in 1520. At the Dissolution the abbey was ruled by one 
Richard the Abbot, and he with seventeen canons signed 
the deed of surrender on the June 20, 1538. At that time 
the net value of the abbey was stated to be £249 6s. 3d. 
The site was granted in the same year to Richard 
Whalley. The goods of the abbey at the general wreck 
sold for £192 17s. 4d., which must have been a very small 
amount of their value. 



[369] 



WHALLEY 

W^^^HE Abbey of Whalley in Lancashire was first 
M C| founded in 1172 for the Cistercians by John 
^^^^^ Constable of Chester and Baron of Halton, at 
Stanlaw, in Cheshire. It was dedicated to the 
Blessed Virgin in accordance with the custom of the 
Order, and the name given it in the charter of foundation 
was Benedictus locus, " the blessed spot." The situation 
of the monastery was near the Cheshire shores of the Mer- 
sey, and this site was soon found to be low and unhealth- 
ful; at spring tides the monastery became inaccessible, the 
waters were constantly encroaching upon the adjoining 
lands and at times they even invaded the monastic offices 
to the depth of three feet. In consideration of these in- 
conveniences, Pope Nicholas IV gave permission for the 
monks to transfer their monastery to Whalley in Lan- 
cashire, where a place had been provided for them by 
Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln. The establishment, there- 
fore, of Whalley Abbey dates from 1296. 

The building of the church was commenced at once, 
and it was dedicated in April, 1306. Whitaker has given 
a few particulars of the structure : The stone with which 
the buildings were constructed came from the quarries of 

[370] 



K^c ^*'v**s<'5Wr^";-.:'~ — 




WHALLEY abbey: THl- ABBOTS HOUSE 



WHALLEY 

Read and Symondstone. The church was 255 feet long, 
divided into a nave of ten bays and a choir and pres- 
bytery of two; the transepts, 142 feet across, had three 
chapels in each wing. The refectory and kitchen appear 
to have been completed between 1362 and 1425, and the 
last portion of the original plan is said to have been taken 
in hand in 1438. 

Very little now remains of the buildings, a portion only 
of the south aisle wall and the south and west walls of the 
transept is still standing. On the outside of the south 
wall, where the cloister used to be, is a recess, which is 
supposed to have been intended for the aumbry, to hold 
the books used by the monks when reading in the cloister. 
The entrance to the Chapter House and the door of the 
refectory are also preserved. The infirmary lies back in 
its own quardrangle of 42 feet, and it contained a refec- 
tory with dormitory for the sick over it and a chapel over 
an undercroft. The approach to the abbey was by two* 
gateways still remaining. The entire establishment com- 
prised three quadrangles and outlying offices: the first 
and most westerly was the great cloister with the church: 
forming the north side, the Chapter House and vestry 
the east, the dormitory the west, and the refectory and 
kitchen the south. 

The foundation of Whalley was opposed by the abbot 
of the neighbouring Cistercian abbey of Sawley. The 
community of the latter monastery considered that the 
new establishment was too near to it, and that it was 
against the constitution of the Cistercian Order for two 

[373] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

houses to be built so close together. Further, the fact 
that both monasteries had to purchase provisions, etc., 
within the one district of Craven had already raised 
prices; the Sawley monks were consequently compelled to 
go further afield, and to be obliged to travel forty or fifty 
leagues always over bad roads was in reality a great in- 
jury. Also, they complained that, since the Whalley 
monks had been building, the monks at Sawley had found 
that the timber they needed cost them thirty shillings a 
year more than before, and the same was true in regard 
to fish, fowl, eggs, etc., for the refectory; fish, moreover, 
came to Sawley less frequently, and when the merchants 
did bring it, it was dearer than it ever was before. This 
complaint of Sawley was carried before the General 
Chapter of the Order, and was finally settled by a com- 
mission of Cistercian abbots in 1305. The two convents 
agreed to assist each other in all business matters, as if 
their interests were common, and by this means the near- 
ness of one house to the other would not materially affect 
the prosperity of either. 

The three centuries of history in this monastery do 
not present any incident of special interest. The last 
abbot, John Paslew, was chosen in 1506, and ruled the 
abbey for thirty years, and indeed until the seizure of the 
abbey by the King in 1537 at the attainder of its abbot on 
a charge of high treason. The story of this seizure of the 
monastery illustrates one of the ways by which the crown 
became possessed of monastic property in the sixteenth 
century. 

[374] 



WHALLEY 

The rising of the people against the royal proceedings, 
and in particular against the dissolution of the smaller 
monasteries in Lincolnshire and the north, took place in 
1536. During the later movement, known as the "Pil- 
grimage of Grace," the insurgents had certainly operated 
in the neighbourhood of Whalley. Indeed, Sawley 
Abbey, which was only a short distance away as we have 
seen, had been suppressed under the act of 1536 for dis- 
solving the lesser monasteries. It was reopened by the 
people, and the monks who had been sent to Furness by 
the royal officials had been brought back in triumph, and 
at once began again their corporate life. News had 
come that the Earl of Derby was on his way, with a con- 
siderable force, to expel the reinstated monks, and the 
whole district was in a ferment to resist to the last, when 
Robert Aske, the leader, recognised that this would be 
impossible. He consequently persuaded the people 
" who had already attainted Whalley Abbey," to " with- 
draw them to the mountains " again. 

Beyond this mention of Whalley as a kind of ren- 
dezvous for the insurgents, there is very little, indeed, to 
connect either the monastery or its abbot with the rising. 
It is true that one witness at the subsequent trial declared 
that the abbot had lent a horse to Nicholas Tempest of 
Brashall. But Tempest's own account of this is very dif- 
ferent. He says that he went to the abbey " with three 
or four hundred men," and, "being kept out about two 
hours, were at last let in, for fear of burning their barns 
and houses. And there he [Tempest] swore the abbot 

[375] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

and about eight of his religious according to Aske's oath." 
So that we have it in evidence that even the oath of the 
" Pilgrims " was extorted from the monks by threats of 
violence. The only other matter which appears against 
Whalley in the documents of the trial is that the Lord 
Darcy had had some communication with the abbey. 
" Memorandum," it is noted, " also Lord Darcy this Lent 
past sent a copy of a letter, which my Lord of Norfolk 
wrote to him, unto the prior of Whalley, who is now at- 
tainted of high treason, whereby it appeareth that the 
Lord Darcy favoured the said prior, being a traitor." 

According to the available evidence, therefore, the part 
taken by Whalley in the rising of the north was very 
slight. There is nothing at all which could be construed 
into any active co-operation with the insurgents. Still, it 
appears that Abbot Paslew was tried at Lancaster, prob- 
ably by martial law, together with two of his monks, John 
Eastgate and William Haydock, and the Abbot of Sawley. 
All were condemned; the latter, William Trafiford, w^as 
hanged at Lancaster on March lo, 1537. The Abbot of 
Whalley with one of his monks, Eastgate, suffered the 
same fate two days later at Whalley; the other member 
of the community one day later still, on March 13, in a 
field some miles from his monastery, and there his body 
was left hanging for some time. The executed monks 
were probably still swinging before their monastery when 
the Abbot of Furness was summoned to Whalley to make 
up his mind whether he would surrender his abbey or no. 
\The ghastly sight of his brethren dangling from the gib- 

[376] 



WHALLEY 

bets may be taken to have assisted him in determining to 
do the King's will at once. 

vMeanwhile, on the attainder and execution of the Abbot 
of Whalley, a novel interpretation of the law of treason 
enabled the King to take possession of the abbey. Burnet 
even says that the seizure of the abbey lands " pursuant to 
those attainders was through a great stretch of the law." 
Hitherto the attainder of a bishop or abbot never had 
been thought to entail the forfeiture of the goods of a 
see or a monastery, and it was left to Henry to place this 
construction on the law. Writing to the Earl of Sussex 
just at this time, the King lays down his interpretation of 
the law. He thanks the earl for the punishment of those 
who had offended him, and specially for the execution of 
the Abbot of Whalley, as well as for having " taken order 
for the good direction of the house and the safe keeping 
of the goods without embezzlement " ; as the house " hath 
been so sore corrupt amongst others," " it shall be meet 
that some order be taken for the remotion of the monks 
now being in the same, and that [it is proper] we should 
take the whole house into our hands; as by our laws we 
be justly, by the attainder of the said late abbot, entitled 
unto it; and so devise for such a new establishment thereof 
as shall be thought meet for the honour of God, our surety 
and the benefit of the country." 

.Sussex is consequently charged to use all dexterity in 
accusing the monks of grievous offences ^' towards us and 
our commonwealth " and then to try and get them to go to 
other religious houses of the Order or to " receive secular 

[377] 



THE GREATER ABBEYS 

habit." It is unnecessary to speculate as to whether 
Henry had any serious designs of re-establishing Whalley 
Abbey. If he had, his design quickly passed away, for 
by Michaelmas, 1537, one John Kechin had been ap- 
pointed receiver at Whalley, and had already been at 
work to some effect. He had sold goods and got in rents 
to the value of £957 us. 7d., had already sent up to Brian 
Tuke, the King's treasurer, some £491 is. lod., and had 
paid away £100 for the carriage of the bullion to London. 
At Whalley, as apparently in the case of all other mo- 
nasteries, the superiors of which had been attainted, none 
of the monks received any pension on being turned out of 
their old home to find their way in the world as best they 
might. 



THE END 



[378] 



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!rH.^!^Y OF CONGRESS 



019 904 683 4 




